


The Other Side of the Water

by DarkAcey



Series: Go Off the Deep End and companion works [6]
Category: Original Work, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, Bisexual Male Character, Dubious Consent, Eventual Romance, Explicit Language, Falling In Love, Fish out of Water, Gay Male Character, Hermaphrodites, Hurt/Comfort, Intersex, Language Barrier, Little Mermaid Elements, Love at First Sight, M/M, Magic, Magic Made Them Do It, Mpreg, Original Fiction, Plot, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2019-09-26 00:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17131691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAcey/pseuds/DarkAcey
Summary: "Erick had finally caught a merman, but it was just his luck that the fiend looked like he would die before tomorrow’s sunrise."When Erick began hunting merfolk to avenge the deaths of his parents, he never expected to learn merfolk could be anything more than half-fish fiends. Yet when he captures a young merman, he is forced to confront their humanity and realize how his own has been lacking.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Go Off the Deep End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11100243) by [DarkAcey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAcey/pseuds/DarkAcey). 



> This story is the alternate version of my story, "Go Off the Deep End." In the original, Erick is the one who transforms into a merman. In this version, Silas becomes human instead.
> 
> This fragment of a story happened mostly because I wanted to experiment with my characters and see how they would act under different circumstances. However, I realized while writing that this version would not end up with a good ending (only a bittersweet one at best), so it will probably never be finished. I have 13 chapters to post. I might write more one day, but I wouldn't expect it.
> 
> *5/3/19 UPDATE* - I've written three more chapters over the past two days and I'm halfway through a fourth. I think I can more or less wrap things up with this story with a few more, so finger's crossed it happens. I'm using this story to get reacquainted with my characters before I tackle the monster that's Go Off the Deep End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! This story marks the start of my haitus from "Go Off the Deep End" so I can rebuild my buffer. I hope you will enjoy seeing this partial alternate version of events. The first four chapters of this story are eventually going to actually replace chapters 1 and 2 of the original, but I haven't bothered updating the original at all to reflect the changes I've been making to the story as a whole.

As bells rang distantly from the canning factories on the west end of Anvil Point, signaling the end of the day, Erick jogged down the docks through a crowd of sailors and fishermen returning home. His head of dark brown hair bobbed above most of the men he passed. Above him in the fading blue to orange sky cawed seagulls. Snippets of conversation flowed around him. A donkey-driven cart rumbling over the boardwalk cut off his path, making Erick stumble to avoid it.

“Oi!” the cart-driver called. “Watch where you’re going!”

“Sorry!” Erick called over his shoulder, his grin unflustered as he continued on his way. “I have a friend to catch!” Ahead of him lay a large, half-barrel shaped building at the end of the docks. It was one of the many buildings that comprised the shipyard.

Once inside, Erick looked up at the scaffolding around a half-built ship. Dozens of people were putting away tools and climbing down rickety ladders, making their way past Erick to leave. When he spotted a woman with raven hair tied up in a purple bandana, he waved his hand and called, “Talia!”

Talia was making her way back to the ground and jumped the last few feet down. She disappeared into the receding wave of her fellow shipbuilders. Erick lifted his chin to better see over the crowd, despite that his height already afforded him a better view than most people. He called Talia’s name again before he found her again. Several strands of her black hair had fallen out of her thick braid and bandana. When she noticed him and his unusually cheerful expression, Talia halted in her tracks and grimaced, rolling her eyes skyward. Shaking her head, she continued again, but picked up her pace and veered away from Erick.

“Talia, don’t be like that,” Erick said as he jogged with long strides over to intercept her. “I—”

“Erick, I swear to god, if you’re gonna try to talk me into hunting mermaids again, I will clock you with a sledgehammer.” Talia stopped to glare at him, challenging the broad-shouldered man to let her prove her threat. The people walking past them looked unsurprised or simply ignored them.

Erick held up his hands in defense, even though she didn’t have her tools and was half his weight. He knew she kept a knife hidden on her belt. “Hey, I’m not saying you would have to do the hunting part—”

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m not interested?” Talia said. “You don’t have a ship or a crew!”

“But I do now,” Erick answered. “Or at least most of a crew. It’s why I’m here. My uncle’s just promised me that he’ll fund us if I can finish filling it out.”

Talia gave him a look of disbelief. “That crusty hard-ass is actually going to pay for it?”

“Yeah, I worked it all out yesterday. Do you remember Dunley, my drinking buddy from my fishing crew?”

“Yeah?” Talia said, arching her eyebrow.

“He said he’d join me, and he can get two of his friends to be deckhands. His wife knows another woman who can be our cook, so that means I only need a first mate now, and I want that to be you.”

“So?” Talia brushed back her stray hair and held her temples. “We’ve already been over this. I don’t want to go back out there. I can’t.”

“You’ve been working next to the ocean for two years!” Erick countered, gesturing to the shipyard. “You never really left it. I promise you, we’re not going to get caught in any storms. We’ll never be out at sea for more than a fortnight.”

“I don’t care.” Talia dropped her arms and turned to hurry off.

“Talia, please,” Erick said, following after her. She slipped through the busy street more easily than him, being much slimmer, but he could still see her over the heads of the crowd. “I can’t trust anyone else. You know way more about running a ship than me. Johnathan wouldn’t have wanted—”

Talia halted and spun to face Erick. “Don’t talk like you know what he would’ve wanted!” she retorted, clenching her hands. “Just fuck off and find another first mate for your joke of a commission.”

“It’s not a joke!” Erick said, becoming short with her. “Do you realize how hard I worked to get my uncle’s funding? How many meetings I’ve had to dress up for and make my case? You might not believe it, but I really have been cutting back on drinking to prove I can be responsible. I haven’t been arrested for over three months.”

“Gee, so you’ve finally caught up with the rest of functioning society? That’s not something to brag about!”

Erick’s face darkened at the jab. “Well, it’s a big deal to me,” he said. “Call me crazy all you want, but getting together this ship and crew is the only reason I have right now to get my act together. Don’t you at least care about that?”

“I would care more if it didn’t involve chasing after fairytale monsters.”

“They’re not a fairytale!” Erick balled his hands into fists. “I’ll prove they’re real, and you’ll see they’re just as bad as any storm the ocean can throw at us.”

Talia seethed at him. “You fucking try saying that again when you’re soaked to the bone and sliding down a deck tipped forty-five degrees. Your killer _mermaids_ do _not_ compare. So, unless you want to drop the discussion, you should kindly fuck off before I try to hurt you.”

Erick set his jaw and stared at Talia. She stared back. Caving, Erick turned away his head. “Fine.” He sighed. “Just please at least think about it. It’s not just all talk anymore. I really do finally have the chance to get back at those monsters. I just want you to be a part of it.”

“If Johnathan was still with us, maybe I would have,” Talia said. “But he’s not, and neither are your parents. Hunting mermaids isn’t going to change that.”

“I can at least stop them from killing other people,” Erick said. “Isn’t that why you work in the shipyard, to help build safer ships? This isn’t any different.”

Talia frowned. “Yes it is. My way’s constructive. Yours is just more killing.”

“Only if we catch anything, and you’re still certain merfolk don’t exist,” Erick said. “It would just be pleasure sailing for you week in and out until my uncle stops humoring me. Doesn’t that sound like a fair gamble to you? Either you’re right and we get nothing for a few months, or I’m right and I get to work with the Navy Admiral instead of our little crew.”

Talia didn’t answer as she looked away.

“I don’t expect you to agree any time soon,” Erick continued. “Maybe you really won’t agree period. But I’m sure at least part of you misses being out there.” He pushed his fingers through his short brown hair, picturing being at sea. “You can’t not remember how good the breeze feels or the waves under the deck. Don’t you want to get away from the smog in the city at least for a little while?”

Talia crossed her arms. “Whether I do or not isn’t your business.”

“Okay, but still. I’m going to meet Dunley and his friends tonight at a bar called The Footsore Roebuck. We’re going to talk about my plans and the ship my uncle’s giving me. I’d like it if you’d join us.”

“I’d rather just go home right now. I’ve had a long enough day as-is.”

“Fair enough,” Erick said, nodding. “If you change your mind, you can always come by my apartment later and I can fill you in.”

“I doubt I will.” Talia took a step to leave again. “If I visit, it’ll be to steal all your alcohol.”

Erick laughed. “I’m not trying to go completely sober.”

“You should, though. I’ve been telling you to for years.” Talia looked towards the docks, where raised sails and rigging lay distantly silhouetted against a deepening red sunset above the city. “It’s stupid that you needed your uncle to bribe you with a whole ship just to make you quit.”

“He’s not bribing me. He knows as well as I do how important it is for me to be out there.”

Talia rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say.” She pat his shoulder as she walked past him. “You have fun with your little hunting crew.”

“I’d have more fun if you’d join us,” Erick said, holding out his hands as he turned to watch her leave.

“It’s not gonna happen!” Talia called without looking back, giving him a backhanded wave goodbye.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For being on a haitus, I sure am posting a lot of work, lol. I'm going to continue updating this story frequently until I resume posting updates on "Go Off the Deep End," and I'll also post more to my Christmas story about these characters as I write it.

Of the coast of Anvil Point, several leagues under peaceful waves, rested the broken hull of a sunken ship. Half of its mass was buried in the sand. Two of its three masts had snapped from a long since passed storm. What little rigging was left had grown greyish-green coral. The sight of it slowly revealing itself behind the blue haze of the ocean left a young merman breathless as he swam towards it. His crimson, gold, and topaz tailfin rippled with excitement. As he began to be able to pick out the three lines of portholes lining the hull, his bright amber eyes widened. “It’s huge.”

“It’s a man o’ war,” Monty said, swimming beside Silas. The older, gaunt merman had a high, nasal voice, an amputated forearm, and an unruly mane of pale blond hair. The two other members of their salvaging crew, Doris and Iara, followed behind them. Their scaled tails glimmered red-gold, yellow-grey, indigo, and fuchsia under the sun filtering through the waves above. “Humans fill them with cannons to blow up other ships.”

“Wow.” Silas couldn’t make out the top of the deck from their angle in the water, but he tried to imagine what it must have looked like before its demise. He grinned at the mental image of sailors loading and firing the cannons, the thunderous boom as they went off. Silas had yet to see an actual sea battle yet, but he had heard plenty of stories back in their shoal, a large city called Peleran.

 Doris swam ahead and turned to face them with a wide smile, revealing sharp teeth that were typical for all merfolk. Her crew-cut, pink hair waved like seagrass. “Let’s hope there’s something good left,” she said, readjusting her salvaging bag to push it back behind her ample, indigo-scaled hips.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Iara said, shaking her head. The motion made her long auburn hair wave like a long cape over her back and fuchsia tail.  “It’s obviously an old wreck.”

Silas tilted his head. “How can you tell? Most of the hull is intact.”

“Look at the coral crusting,” Monty said, pointing at the ship. “The hull might still be standing, but most of it’s been eaten up. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been searched through thrice over.”

Silas frowned at this thought as he looked over at his mentor. “It’s still worth checking it out, though… right?”

Monty laughed. “Of course.” He tousled Silas’ tawny blond hair. “Wouldn’t be much fun in salvaging without exploring even sand holes.”

Silas batted away Monty’s hand, brightening up. “Yeah, and anything would be fun with you guys.”

“You got that right!” Doris said, grinning as she wrapped her arm around Iara and pulled her over to hug Silas too. “I can’t go anywhere without you two shrimps!” She squeezed the more slender mers together with her thick arms. Monty smirked at the three of them, quite content to keep the water in his gills.

“Dory!” Iara squealed, failing to wriggle out of her partner’s grip. “You’re going to tangle my hair.” Her auburn locks twisted around them, becoming less like a cape and more like a personal kelp forest.

Doris rubbed her nose against Iara’s forehead without letting go of Silas or Iara. “I’ll help you braid it up then. We wouldn’t want it to get snagged on the ship.”

Silas looked up at Doris with an eager smile. “Can I help too?”

“Sure, squirt.” Doris let go of them and swam behind Iara. While they continued swimming, she began combing her fingers through Iara’s hair. “Gather up the left side and I’ll get the right.”

“Got it.” Silas followed Doris’ lead, carefully watching how she braided the right side. They divided Iara’s hair into three braids before uniting them into one much thicker and shorter braid.

Iara patted her hair to make sure the two of them got it all tied up before she smiled at Doris. “Thank you, darling.” She gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and petted Doris’ cropped pink hair. “A shame I can’t braid yours.”

Doris nuzzled Iara’s face with her own. “At least it still matches you,” she said, glancing down at the scales that covered Iara’s chest and tail.

Silas watched the two of them flirt as his smile faded, envious. He didn’t have a romantic partner, and hadn’t been able to find anyone he liked in that way at all yet, despite having already come of age last year. His best friend back at Peleran, Gale told him it was because he never spent enough time in the shoal, but Silas liked exploring the ocean too much. He didn’t want to settle down with just anybody, and certainly not somebody who didn’t appreciate lost human things. Nothing delighted him more than the strange craftsmanship of a tin cup or leather shoe. His dream was to see what a lit lantern looked like, as he had only ever seen them for sale in the market chasm, corroded or broken. He wouldn’t be able to do any of that if he stayed in Peleran and took up an apprenticeship, like his father, Ronan wanted.

Being the only child of Peleran’s captain of the guards, Silas knew from an early age all of the dangers that could befall him within or outside of the shoal. His father helped put criminals behind bars every day, and Monty’s missing arm was evidence of what salvagers faced while exploring often shark-infested waters. It didn’t help either that Silas’ maternal father had died young due to complications with his birth. Everything seemed to be stacked against Silas’ favor. Even though Monty had been salvaging before even Silas’ father was born and frequently reassured him that his son was safe in his care, Ronan would have preferred nothing more than for Silas to simply work in the reef fields with Gale and never leave home. It was a fate Silas avoided as much as possible by going on every trip he could afford with Monty.

Whether or not Silas would to be able to continue affording these trips, however, was becoming a matter of debate. He had lucked out with the first few trips he had gone on with Monty, having been able to bring home many valuable treasures, but the ships they had been able to find recently were yielding worse and worse finds. That, plus the fact that Monty was considering retiring in a few years, worried Silas. Doris and Iara weren’t as serious with salvaging, seeing it more as a fun pastime than a livelihood, so Silas didn’t know if he would be able to find another crew if they disbanded.

These worries vanished from Silas’ mind as they entered the man o’ war. The glowing, blue-green algae lamps illuminated the dark cavern within the hull of the ship. Crabs skittered away as they swam over sand and rocks that had drifted inside. Small fish darted around calcified, crooked support beams like dust motes. When he spotted an upturned table against a slanted wall that used to be a ceiling, Silas grinned and spun around in the water to orient himself with the ship’s original position. Though half of the ship was buried in sediment, Silas swept it away and righted the table in his mind to picture sailors playing a dice game. He didn’t know if humans played the same kinds of games as merfolk, but he liked to think they would enjoy them if they had the chance. That was the trouble of forbidding contact between humans and merfolk on their side of the sea. No matter how many relics Silas could find from their sunken ships, he would never be able to ask them as simple of a question as what they liked to do in their free time.

Doris laughed when she saw Silas floating sideways. “What are you doing?”

“Hm?” Silas twisted to face her, ending up upside down. “Just thinking about the sailors that had been here. Do you ever wish you could meet a human?”

“Not particularly,” Doris answered. “They’d probably try to put us in a zoo or something.”

“Yeah, but what if there were humans that wouldn’t do that?”

“Dunno.” Doris shrugged and turned to follow the others, who had gone further into the ship. “I wouldn’t know what to talk about. They’d probably think we’re weird for obsessing over their junk, don’t you think?”

“I guess.” Silas righted himself and swam ahead. “Monty?” he called, going up beside him. “What about you? Would you want to meet a human?”

“Meet one, on this side of the sea?” Monty laughed. “I’ve already lost an arm. I don’t need to go losing my tail too.”

Silas pouted. “They can’t all be bad.”

“No, but it’s not worth the risk,” Monty said. “There’s a reason we only trade with them in the northeast. They got contracts and rules and keep out any humans that can’t be trusted. Staying away from them is just easier.”

“More like more boring,” Silas muttered, though he let the subject drop. Even if his crew wouldn’t agree with him, he knew there had to be others that would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time I've showed Silas' salvaging crew, so what do you think of them? When I revise GOtDE, I hope to include them more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year's Eve! When I look back on 2018, it's amazing how much I've done. I've written over 100,000 words (probably closer to 150,000 if I count all my deleted or extra material), at least a dozen difficult essays for my spring and fall classes, got my bachelor's degree, started graduate school, survived a semester of teaching, went to Tucson, AZ and set plans to travel to Philadelphia next spring. I've kept up with therapy and made progress towards getting a proper diagnosis for ADHD, and I've become a lot more comfortable acknowledging/talking about my kinks/sexuality. There were a lot of things I wish had gone better, mostly with my family and US politics, but my personal achievements are definitely something I think I should be proud of overall.
> 
> I have these stories and you, my readers to thank for most of this progress. My characters have been such a reprieve for me in so many stressful periods of this year, and I don't know if I would have stuck with them for as long as I did if it wasn't for your kudos, comments, and continued readership. So, thank you. *raises a piece of toast* Here's to 2019. Let's hope it'll be another great year.

****

“So Talia’s not joining us?” Dunley asked, sitting at the bar already with his friends as Erick sat down beside him. Oil lanterns hanging between the rafters bathed them in warm, dull light, making Dunley’s beard look more brown than its usual intense ginger.

“Not tonight, at least,” Erick answered. He rolled up his sleeves to his elbows and folded his arms on the bar. The white of his sleeves looked stark against his dark olive skin. “She’s still shy about the sea.” For the benefit of Dunley’s friends, he explained, “Her husband went overboard and drowned in a storm some years ago, and so she hasn’t wanted to go out again since then.”

“I see.” Dunley stroked his ginger beard with a frown in sympathy. “That’s my wife’s biggest fear, me getting lost in the drink. Damn shame your friend had to go through that.”

“Yeah,” Erick said, nodding. “I’m hoping I can still convince Talia. It’ll be good for her to get back on the water, and I really don’t know anyone else who is as qualified.” He then leaned forward to better see Dunley’s friends behind him. “Anyway, will you introduce me to your friends?”

“Of course.” Dunley leaned back and gestured to each of them in turn. “Erick, this is Flynn and Eustace.” While Flynn was nearly as tall as Erick, he was hardly even half as wide, skinny and pallid as he was. Eustace looked the opposite, being short and stout with deep, umber-brown skin.

“It’s a pleasure making your acquaintance,” Flynn said, reaching over to shake Erick’s hand.

Erick accepted it and nodded to Eustace as well, as he couldn’t reach his hand. “Thank you both for coming. I assume Dunley has told you the gist of why I’m recruiting you two?”

“Yes, sir,” Flynn said. “He said you were putting together a hunting team to get mermaids?”

“That’s basically it,” Erick said. “Did you two have any questions before I run through the details?”

“Yeah,” Eustace said. “Why you want to hunt them down? Ain’t all this a lot for a storytelling thing?”

Though Erick had expected that question, it nevertheless annoyed him since it was largely common knowledge among all the men he started fights with in bars. He used to tell his story everyone who’d listen, hoping they would believe. Instead, naturally, they all only mocked him, and Erick was not a man to put up with insults, no matter how many times he got carted off to jail for it. The fact that he had been able to avoid getting arrested for three months now had less to do with his self-restraint and more to do with him avoiding going to bars entirely.

With a sigh, Erick said, “It’s not just ‘a storytelling thing.’ Merfolk killed my parents when I was ten. They sunk their ship, and they’re still sinking other people’s ships. I know it’s true because my uncle has seen them do it.”

Eustace frowned, skeptical. “Why should we believe him?”

“My uncle is one of the richest people in Anvil Point,” Erick answered flatly. “He used to own a big trading company and was a captain of his own ship before then. When he traveled to the northeast, that was when he saw what those fish freaks can do, and he swore he’d never go back there because of it.”

Flynn began to look uneasy. “Really? How bad is the stuff they can do?”

“Is it just that they drown people like sirens?” Eustace added.

“Not quite, but yeah.” Erick sat back. “They sink ships because they want the stuff humans have. As soon as they can get a sailor in the water, they take anything valuable off of them and fight over it.”

Dunley chuckled. “You make them sound more like wolves than seductresses.”

“Well, they are,” Erick said. “My uncle used to tell me all the time about how they all have sharp teeth and long, greedy fingers. They’re all more like fish than people.”

“All right then,” Eustace said, nodding. “Say we do find them; how do we know they won’t sink our ship?”

“I’m going to outfit it with harpoon cannons and nets,” Erick answered. “If they try to attack us, we’ll be able to fight back. We shouldn’t have to worry about that regardless, though, because they only seem to target merchant ships. Any fights we get into will probably just to stop them from attacking other sailors.”

“Sounds fair enough,” Flynn said, leaning forward with his elbows on the bar. “When can we start?”

Erick shrugged. “It depends on when I can get Talia onboard. I don’t really want anyone else.”

Dunley gave Erick a sober look. “We can’t wait forever for her to change her mind. If you’ll have me as first mate, it shouldn’t be too hard to find another deckhand. We can put up a bulletin or something.”

“I know. It’s just that neither of us has actually run a ship. We’re just seasonal fishermen.”

“Yeah, but we can learn as we go,” Dunley said. “It’s not like we’re trying to go anywhere in particular or have a specific schedule. We just have to make sure we don’t get lost or sail out too far.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

Dunley pat Erick on the back. “Don’t worry about it so much. Whether she joins us or not, we’re already going to be having a lot more fun with this than gutting fish every day. Just buck up and be glad we get to do this at all.”

Erick sighed, but nodded. “Okay.” He waved over the bartender to get a beer. “We’ll figure this all out one way or another.”

* * *

When Erick returned to his studio apartment, he was confused when he unlocked the door and saw the lights were on. “What the…?” He stepped inside cautiously. Then he saw his unexpected guest and laughed. “Talia, what are you doing here?”

She was sitting on his couch with her legs propped up on the coffee table, reading one of the books from his shelves. An opened bottle of beer sat on the end table beside her. Lowering the book, Talia gave him a poker face and said, “What does it look like? I’m stealing all of your alcohol.”

“Uh-huh.” Erick tried and failed to hold back a grin as he put his hands on his hips. “You’re not being very efficient about it, are you?”

Talia shrugged and tossed aside the book into his couch’s throw pillows. “I figured you’d take longer.”

Erick shook his head with a chuckle. “Of course.” He went to sit on his bed across from her. His studio apartment had his bedroom space and living area facing each other. His kitchen stood in the back. The large window behind the dining table overlooked the docks, where hundreds of lanterns hanging from boats and street lights were just barely visible through his apartment’s reflection on the glass. It mirrored Erick as he leaned on his hands behind himself on the bed and stretched out his legs. “You know breaking into people’s places is rude, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s more rude to harass people at their workplaces.” Talia pulled her legs off the coffee table and sat up. “How’d things go with Dunley’s friends?”

“Good, you know.” Erick tipped his head to the side. “They’re all onboard with the idea. Dunley says he’ll be my first mate if you won’t.”

Talia scoffed. “Does he even know how to use a sextant?”

“I don’t know, but I could probably try to teach him. Ivan’s taken me sailing plenty of times.”

“Only once at night, though,” Talia answered. “Can you read the stars?”

“Yeah, though it’s been a while, I’ll admit. I can probably get Ivan to give me a refresher course.”

Talia rolled her eyes. “You talked him into giving you a ship and you don’t even remember everything about navigating beyond the coast?”

“I leave sight of land almost every day.”

“But you’re not in command of your fishing boat.” Talia shook her head and rested her arms on her knees. Sighing, she looked back up at Erick. “Are you really going to go out there with nothing but your teenage experience sailing and a rag-tag crew?”

“I mean… Yeah?” Erick held up his hands, sheepish. “Not like I’ll be able to find anybody else. Anybody with brains would think I’m scamming them.”

Talia lowered her head again, muttering a curse. She hit her hand on her knee. “Fine then.” Sitting up, she said, “If you’re all going to be such a dumbasses, then I’m going to have to make sure you all don’t fucking kill yourselves out there.”

Erick grinned. “So you will join us?”

“More like babysit, but sure.”

“Yes!” Erick did a fist-pump. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Talia stood up. “You don’t have to gloat about it.” As she walked to the door, she said, “I’ll put in my two weeks and all that tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Talia.” Erick jumped up to open the door for her. “I promise, you’re not going to regret it.”

“I better not.” As she glanced back up at him, her poker face faltered with a smirk. “You’re gonna owe me big time, you hear?”

“Loud and clear, first mate.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was added at the same time as chapter 13 (now 14).

“What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” Silas whined, dramatically slumping his shoulders at Monty while they minded the shop of one of their mutual friends, Jeb. The market chasm where mers could buy and sell just about anything that could be found in the ocean was having a slow morning, as few mers passed Jeb’s shop, and fewer still stopped to look at the salvaged goods they sold. While they waited for his return, Monty explained to Silas that he would be leaving Peleran for a few weeks with all of his old salvager friends as a kind of reunion and last hurrah for those deciding to officially retire. Though Silas understood and was happy for Monty, it didn’t change the fact that he would be stuck home.

“Why don’t you try working with Gale?” Monty suggested. “Getting some practice in the reef fields isn’t a bad idea.”

“But it’s boring.” Silas turned to fold his arms on the shop counter and pouted. “Collecting crabs and starfish isn’t as fun as finding coins or other stuff.” Not to mention, it was also still too close to home for Silas’ liking. The reef fields were barely beyond the edge of the shoal. A third of all of their food and coral goods came from the reefs that surrounded them. The other two thirds came from the open ocean to the north of them and the kelp forests along the southern coast.

“It isn’t, but it’s still important to know how to forage beyond the shoal. You never want to be out exploring and run out of food.”

“Yeah, I know,” Silas answered. “But most of what we cross isn’t reefs, and I can’t pretend otherwise.”

“True,” Monty conceded. “It would make your father happier if you at least gave it a try.”  
Silas groaned. “So?” He glanced back over at his mentor. “Was he bothering you again about me salvaging with you?”

Monty laughed. “No, but he’s talked to me about it often enough. I imagine he’ll be pleased when you tell him about my reunion trip.”

Silas dropped his forehead onto the counter. “Pleased and be annoying about it.” Though Silas had begun learning how to be a salvager when he was fifteen, two years before he even came of age, his father, Ronan still didn’t fully approve. He saw it as a dangerous pastime for eccentrics, people who tended to cause trouble or get into trouble because of their obsession with useless human relics. The missing half of Monty’s arm evidenced the hazards of exploring shipwrecks, which often attracted sharks. Ronan allowed it because he trusted Monty’s experience and knew it made Silas happy, but it did not stop him from nagging Silas to take up a safer occupation that would not take him outside of the shoal.

“He can’t help it,” Monty said sympathetically. “You are all he has left.”

“I don’t care. I’m not a baby anymore.”

Monty stared at Silas for a moment, smirking at the irony of Silas’ pouting. “Maybe not a baby, but perhaps still more a child.”

“No I’m not,” Silas protested, sitting upright. “I’m eighteen – plenty old enough for him to stop treating me like a kid.”

“Well, if you try humoring him while I’m gone, maybe he’ll stop.”

“Doubt it. He’ll just think he’s winning.”

“Perhaps.” Monty shrugged. “But you might as well try anyway. Doing something different for a while will be good for you. All salvagers have to take odd jobs now and then between trips.”

“I guess.” Silas couldn’t argue with that, but it didn’t make him any happier.

* * *

After Monty left on his trip, Silas spent the first few days mainly with Jeb in his shop, if only to remain surrounded by human trinkets. When that lost its appeal, he wandered the shoal. That, too, quickly grew old. On a particularly dull morning, Silas went to Doris and Iara’s house to see if they would be willing to go for a little excursion outside the shoal, just a quick jaunt to sift the sand beyond the reefs and come back before dinner. Their answer dismayed him.

“We’re sorry, Silas,” Iara said, guiltily wringing her long hair. “But Doris and I were planning on going to a party today.”

“There isn’t really any point to play around in the sand either,” Doris added. “Just stop going stir crazy and try to enjoy being home. Don’t you have other people you can hang out with?”

“Just Gale, but he’s always busy with work or his other friends.” Silas settled on the floor of their living area. “And his mom, I guess, but I wouldn’t want to bother her either. The same goes for all of my dad’s friends.”

“Why don’t you try meeting someone new?” Iara offered.

“How?” Silas asked. “I don’t socialize. Nobody my age likes human stuff, and I annoy everybody who’s older than me.” He hugged his tail against his chest. “Gale is the only person I know who’s my same age, and that’s just because his mom was friends with both of my dads. Monty and Jeb are both old enough to be grandparents, and only I know you two because of Monty.”

Iara and Doris looked at each other, both frowning. “Well,” Doris said, “Monty’s taken on other ’prentices. Aren’t you friendly with any of them?”

“Sort of, but not enough to feel like asking them to hang out with me. And half of them are exactly the kind of people that give my dad reason to think of all salvagers as miscreants.”

Doris snorted. “Yeah, but since when did you care?”

“I don’t, but I don’t want to give him something new to nag me about.”

“Fair enough,” Doris conceded.

“How about we hang out tomorrow and try to figure out something you can do?” Iara asked. “In the meantime, I’m sure Gale’s not so busy that he can’t spend time with you. Have you even asked yet?”

Silas shook his head. “No.”

“Then go ask him,” Iara chided gently. “If he can’t do anything with you today, you can at least find out when he’ll be free.”

With a sigh, Silas said, “Okay.”

* * *

“How in the Abyss is this more fun than literally anything else we could be doing back home?” Gale asked while he watched Silas chip away at a rock that he thought looked like a cannonball. His burgundy tail flicked impatiently. Since Gale turned out to be free after all, Silas had managed to convince him to leave the shoal so he could search the seabed for wayward artifacts. Gale followed like a long-suffering big brother, rolling his eyes at Silas’ odd enthusiasm and yet still unable to refuse him.

“It’s more fun because you never know what you’ll find,” Silas answered. “Everything back home always stays the same.”

“The people don’t. There’s always plenty to talk about.”

Silas looked up from his rock to stare petulantly at Gale. “Gossiping is nothing like salvaging and you know it.”

Gale laughed. “Nuh-uh. You like digging in dirt, and I can dig into rumors.”

“But you can’t _do_ anything with a rumor,” Silas answered. “You can hold human stuff, look at it, and sell it too to find more stuff.”

“What’s the point of looking at it if you can’t talk to it?”

Silas glowered at Gale before looking back down at his rock. Deciding that it wasn’t a cannonball after all, he tossed it aside and put his chisel back into his bag. As he continued swimming, he said, “The point is that I can imagine where it might have been used on land, or who might have owned it, or how far it might have traveled. I want to figure out that stuff.”

“But you’re never going to be able to, not unless you move to one of the shoals in the northeast.”

“Well, maybe I will one day.” Silas shrugged, looking off into the endless blue expanse ahead of them. The surface was barely a lighter blue haze above them.

“That’s an awfully far way to go just to satisfy your curiosity.”

“So?” Silas didn’t feel like arguing that it wasn’t just curiosity that propelled him. He had tried to explain and failed many times. It was something more like an obsession, though he wouldn’t use that word. It was closer to a calling, a nameless feeling that his search had some purpose. Not all merfolk believed in fate, but Silas liked to think it was real.

“I’m just saying you make things harder than they need to be,” Gale said.

“You just don’t like working.”

“Yeah? Nothing wrong with that.”

Silas rolled his eyes. Before he could think up a retort that wouldn’t also be telling off himself for refusing to do anything that didn’t involve salvaging, he noticed a dark spot near the surface ahead of them. “Huh?” Silas angled upwards. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Gale followed after him. As they grew closer, his eyes narrowed. “It looks like pieces of a ship.”

Silas’ eyes widened. “You think?” he asked, glancing back at him.

“What else would it be?”

“Let’s check it out!” Silas darted ahead.

“Wait, Silas!” Gale swam after him.

When they neared the surface, Silas froze. In the mess of broken wood and tangled ropes floated the face-down bodies of humans.

“What…? Oh, gods.” Gale stopped beside Silas. “Are they all dead?”

“I… I don’t know.” Silas shook his head disbelievingly, eyes picking through the wreckage. He swallowed hard and continued swimming up. “Help me look.”

“Are you serious?” Gale looked horrorstruck. “Silas, even if any of them are alive, what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know!” Silas stopped beneath one man, but put his hand over his mouth against the urge to throw up. The man’s throat was slit open. Tearing away his gaze, Silas darted to another man. His neck was also cut. One of his earlobes was also torn, as if someone had ripped out an earring. The third man he found was stabbed through the chest. As he continued checking each body, he said, “All of them were killed.”

“Holy shit.” Gale watched Silas at a distance, unable to make himself go near the dead bodies. “We shouldn’t be here. Sharks are going to smell the blood.”

“Then keep an eye out for them.” Silas circled the wreckage again as he finished looking over the bodies. His initial horror was fading to pity. There were no survivors. This was not his first time encountering the remains of dead humans, but he had never seen them so fresh. Silas inclined his head. Putting a fist over his heart, he murmured a prayer for their spirits to safely find refuge in the Abyss. He didn’t know if humans who died on land went to the same place as merfolk, but he couldn’t fathom them going anywhere else if they died at sea.

When Silas finished his prayer, he turned back to Gale. “Come on.” He began swimming down. “There’s probably stuff in the sand beneath them.”

Gale gaped at him. “You still want to salvage stuff?”

Silas shrugged, subdued. “Yeah. I can’t save any of those people, but their things are still worth being preserved.” When Gale continued looking appalled, Silas said, “Just because these people died more recently doesn’t change the value of their belongings. Every single thing a salvager finds belongs to someone who died. I know not all of us respect the dead like we should, but saving their things is how I try to honor their lives.”

Gale glanced back up at the wreck as he followed Silas to the ocean floor. “But doesn’t it freak you out to be so close to them?”

“What are they going to do, Gale? Their spirits have already passed on. The only thing we have to worry about now is sharks, and I don’t see any around here yet.”

“Still.”

“Just try not to worry about it,” Silas said, taking back out his sieve to begin searching the sand. “Praying for them might make you feel better.”

Gale made a face. “Why would I? Humans don’t belong in the Abyss.”

Silas frowned back at Gale. “When they die at sea, they deserve to find rest just as much as we do.”

“Doesn’t mean they have to go the same place as us.”

Scowling, Silas said, “You’re the worst sometimes. You know that?”

Gale smiled wryly. “So are you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! I don't really have any resolutions, since I always completely forget about them by February, but I generally want to focus on actually finishing more stories and figuring out career/money stuff. I've been a student for so long, I have no idea how I'm going to transition into a working adult. I have until I finish my Master's to figure it out, at least (about a year).
> 
> If this chapter seems familiar while you read it, it used to be the original first two chapters of "Go Off the Deep End." I combined the two and took out the giant info dump, so it should be a lot better now.

Erick stood at the bow of his schooner, _The Gentian_ , with his elbows leaning on the railing and the toe of his boot resting behind his other heel. The wind blew against the back of his neck and tugged at his loose white shirt. The ship creaked as it cut through the water, rising and falling gently with the waves. The noon sun glinted at the edge of his peripheral vision, making Erick squint his viridian green eyes. He stared with a frown at the endless blue horizon.

 _The Gentian_ was within three hundred miles of the shore, but Erick and his crew had lost sight of land early that morning. They were traveling parallel with the coast as they patrolled the water for pirates or shipwrecks. They had been at it for four months now. Since spring began, seventeen ships had sunk in safe, open waters along the coast. Mostly fishing boats had discovered them. Erick and his crew had found two of the wrecks so far, far too late to do any good. All of the bodies they found were stabbed to death and maimed by sharks.

Talia came up beside Erick and rested her elbows next to his. The sleeve of her blouse brushed against his arm. She had braided her hair and tied her purple bandana around her head as usual, but strands of her hair still came undone. She brushed them behind her ear as she turned to face Erick.

“You’re brooding again,” Talia said. The corner of her mouth quirked up as Erick looked sidelong at her.

Erick’s eyebrows rose with a mildly annoyed look. “Yes, and?” He returned his gaze to the sea.

“You didn’t move an inch when Reena rang the lunch bell,” Talia answered. “She’ll be offended if you don’t eat while your food is hot.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Talia rolled her eyes. “Sure you aren’t.” She looked out to the sea, trying to picture whatever Erick saw out there. She imagined a ship cresting a mountainous wave, silhouetted by lighting. That was what she still thought about on dark nights. She sighed. “If you’re going to think about your parents again, save your soul-crushing thoughts for when you can’t sleep anyway. You’re going to drive yourself mad if you don’t let yourself have a life beyond this.”

Erick tightened his hand, glancing down. He knew she was right, but he couldn’t muster the will to care. They had been at this for months. If they didn’t get any results, he didn’t know how much longer he would be able to justify his uncle’s funding.

Talia waited another moment for Erick to respond, then shook her head. “Fine, I’ll leave you to your brooding. Just eat before your food gets cold, all right?”

“I will,” Erick answered.

“Good.” Talia lingered a little longer before returning to her post at the helm.

A quarter hour later, Erick got lunch and returned to the bow to keep scanning the horizon for shipwrecks. When he noticed a spattered brown patch on the blue sea, Erick jumped and scrambled for his telescope. He peered through the lens and recognized the curve of a ship’s keel, belly-up on the water.

“We have a wreck!” Erick shouted, not looking away. “Turn us to starboard side, Talia!”

“Got it, Captain,” Talia answered, turning the wheel. She barked orders to Dunley, Eustace, and Flynn. Reena came up from the kitchen below deck to lean over the railing and try to see the wreckage herself.

Erick examined the water, searching for any signs of life, whether it was human or otherwise. He spotted a body floating face-down, and then another one. His stomach churned at the sight and his jaw clenched. By a broken chunk of the deck, Erick then saw someone surface and hoist himself onto the flotsam. He had pale skin, gold hair, and a scrap of cloth slung over his shoulder. Erick opened his mouth to shout that there were survivors, but then a fiery red tail flicked up and splashed water across his slender back. The merman was looking at something shiny in his hands.

* * *

Silas pulled himself up onto a piece of the deck to admire his new find, a gold necklace with a coin-sized locket. He had dredged it up from the sand beneath the wreck, as well as a handful of other trinkets he had tucked into his satchel hanging over his shoulder. Gold always looked much better in sunlight than in the murky depths, Silas thought with a smile. Even though he couldn’t breathe very well above water, he kept his gills wet by flicking water onto himself.

Gale surfaced beside Silas with a scowl. His black hair looked comically flat on his head out of the water, as it normally floated like short seagrass. Since Silas’ salvaging crew was busy, Silas had persuaded Gale to go explore the sand beds outside of Peleran. Neither of them expected to come across a fresh wreck, and so Silas treated the find like it Homingtide had come early. Gale, however, found the wreckage suspicious since it clearly wasn’t caused by natural means.

As Silas continued examining his finds, Gale demanded, “What are you doing?” He gestured to a rapidly approaching schooner. “There’s a ship headed here right now!”

Silas glanced up, but shrugged. “We have time.” Silas reached into his satchel to put away the necklace and took out a brass caliper compass. Opening it like an albatross’ beak, he grinned when he imagined how his salvager friends would react. Human navigation equipment didn’t often find its way to the market chasm. Pointing the compass’ points at Gale, he pretended to make it talk at him as he said, “They probably can’t see us yet anyway.”

“So?” Gale glared at the compass. “They will soon, and they’ll think we were the ones that did this,” he argued. “I don’t want to be around when they start firing cannons.”

“Okay, just let me look at the rest of my findings.” Silas put back the caliper compass and took out a spoon. Unlike the others in his collection, it wasn’t crusted with a dull patina yet. “It’s impossible to really appreciate them underwater, you know.”

“And it’s also impossible if you’re dead,” Gale snapped. He looked back up at the ship and could now see the men aboard. “Silas, we need to go!”

“Gale, relax.” Silas waved the spoon at him. “You’re just being a sourpuss.” He lifted his tail to splash himself again. “They’re not—” A cannon went off. Silas looked up just as a harpoon speared his crimson and gold tail. He slid off the broken deck with a shout and dropped the spoon. He grabbed the harpoon to pull it out, but the hooked end tore at his flesh. “Gale!” he cried.

As the rope on the harpoon suddenly grew taut, Gale pulled out his obsidian knife from his belt and seized the harpoon. The men aboard were reeling in Silas as easily as a fish.

“I’m sorry, Gale, I’m sorry!” Silas started crying. The harpoon kept pulling his tail out of the water.

“Shut up and stop flailing,” Gale shouted, struggling to get a good grip on the rope as he started cutting it. His curved blade barely splintered the thick, wet fibers.

Another harpoon fired, narrowly missing Gale, followed by a net lined with weights. Ropes attached to the four corners ensnared the net around the two mermen.

“Gale, stop! They’re going to get you too!”

“I don’t care,” he retorted.

“Gale, please!” Silas begged. “Get help. Both of us won’t have a chance unless you get help.”

They were now within twenty feet of the boat, and Silas could hear the crew going crazy with their catch. Gale kept hacking at the rope even as the net started pulling them out of the water.

“Gale, go!” Silas pulled him off the rope and pushed him to the edge of the net. Before Gale could grab the harpoon again or even Silas, he slipped backwards and splashed back into the water.

Gale resurfaced immediately. “Silas!” The crew aboard made angry shouts.

“Get my dad!” Silas shouted back. “I’ll be okay!”

“No, Silas!” One of the men threw a harpoon at him as another tossed a net. Gale ducked under the water and swam back out of range. He surfaced again. “I’ll come back for you, Silas! Just… Just hang in there!”

Silas couldn’t answer now. The crew had dragged him onto the deck and were pinning down his arms and fin. Gale looked on helplessly. He disappeared back under the water when another harpoon was thrown at him. Gale circled the ship, trying to commit to memory the shape of its sails and every barnacle on the hull. When he saw the men dump Silas into a giant iron-bound tank, he felt a small pang of relief. They weren’t going to kill him. Not yet, at least. Gale held onto that thought when he sped off back home.

* * *

Erick cursed when the second merman slipped out of the net. He threw a harpoon at him and his Dunley tossed a net, but he easily dodged both. It was no use to keep trying. They caught one, and that was all he needed. Erick ordered Talia to remove the oiled tarp from the glass tank they kept filled just for this occasion. As soon as she unbolted the grate on the top and propped it open, he told her to go below deck to fetch the surgeon’s kit.

They pulled the merman up to the edge of the deck. Erick reached down to grab his arms, but the merman slapped at him and pushed back against the net.

“Come here, you damn fish!” As Eustace and Dunley continued pulling up the net, Erick hooked one leg around the railing and reached down again. He grabbed hold of the merman’s wrist and wrenched him forward. The merman dug his nails under Erick’s fingers, frantically scrabbling to free himself, but Erick gritted his teeth and held on. Erick kept pulling him forward even as the merman screeched and seized his elbow. Erick screamed when the merman bit his arm. He released his hold, stumbling back as he held his own wrist up to his chest. The fiend’s knife-sharp teeth cut deep into the flesh of his arm.

“Captain!” Talia rushed up to Erick’s side with the surgeon’s kit. Seeing his bloody arm, she said, “It bit you?”

“Yes, now hold down the fucking thing and give me that!” Erick took the surgeon’s kit and set it down. As his crew manhandled the merman onto the deck, Erick hastily bandaged his arm. He used his teeth and his free hand to knot it tight.

The deck was slick with blood and seawater when Erick bent down to remove the harpoon. They had pulled the net off his tail and pushed aside the bag slung over his shoulder. Talia held down the end of his fin, Dunley straddled his back, and Reena and Eustace held down his arms. Even with all of them together, they struggled to hold him still. Flynn was still trying to get the second merman.

Erick unsheathed his knife and sawed off the rope on the harpoon. Without bothering to be gentle, he took the sharp end of the harpoon and pulled it the rest of the way through. The merman shrieked, bucking harder against his captors. Talia lost her grip on his tailfin and fell back. His tail struck Erick across his face and splattered him with blood.

“Goddamn fiend, hold still!” Erick wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand and spat. The taste of the merman’s coppery blood lingered on his tongue. Talia wrangled his tail again. Pulling the surgeon’s kit closer, Erick took out a needle and spool of catgut. He sutured the merman’s wounds, not caring if his stitches were even as the merman kept bucking. His struggling waned with every passing second. He was running out of oxygen. As soon as Erick closed both sides, he firmly wrapped a linen bandage around his tail and tied it off.

“Done,” Erick stated, standing up. “Get him in the tank.”

His crew picked up the merman together and pulled off the bag slung over his shoulders. They unceremoniously dumped him into the stale, sun-heated water. Before the merman could come back up to the surface, Talia closed the grate and bolted it shut. The merman grabbed the bars and shook them. Finding it fastened, he pounded on the glass. After a moment of staring, the crew began cheering and slapping each other on the back.

Erick did not cheer, but held his injured arm to his chest and smiled grimly at his catch. The merman was a lot less fishy than he expected him to look, but no one would be able to deny the truth. Merfolk were real, and they were sinking ships. As soon as he and his uncle brought this specimen to the King’s Navy Admiral, they would have the necessary manpower to really get the hunt started.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is the point where the timelines diverge! From here, you can either jump to chapter 3 of "Go Off the Deep End," or continue reading this story.

Erick had finally caught a merman, but it was just his luck that the fiend looked like he would die before tomorrow’s sunrise. He had sunken to the bottom of the tank and fallen unconscious shortly after they dropped him into it. His gills and chest appeared to barely move at all.

As Talia helped Erick properly clean and bandage his arm on the deck, Erick stared at the merman. “He’s not bleeding anymore, so it can’t just be blood loss, right?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Talia said. “He bled a lot before we stitched him up, and he might still have internal bleeding in his tail.”

Erick frowned at that thought. “Do you think we should fish him back out to check on it?”

“And do what if you botched the job?” Talia asked, raising her eyebrow. “Cut it up and redo it?” She tugged on Erick’s bandages to tighten them.

Erick winced and sucked air through his teeth. “No, you’re right. But there has to be something we can do to make sure he doesn’t keel over before we get back to land.”

“Painkillers maybe?” Talia loosened the bandages again and clipped them into place. “He could’ve just passed out because we didn’t sedate him at all.”

“True.” Erick moved his arm to look at Talia’s work. “I could use some now myself. That little bastard had one hell of a bite.”

Talia smirked. “Serves you right, harpooning the poor thing.” She looked back at the tank. “He really doesn’t look as scary as you made them out to sound.” She glanced back at Erick. “Is anyone really going to believe he’s a ship sinker?”

Erick faced the merman again. His human face looked more unsettling the more he looked at it. With a sigh, he said, “Honestly, I don’t know. But I will do my damnedest to convince everyone that it is an actual possibility. He’s proof that I was at least partially right. Even if this specific fiend is just a scavenger, there could easily be worse ones out there.”

“If you say so.” Talia shrugged and went back to the helm.

Erick continued staring at the merman for another minute before he followed. They needed to set their course back to land.

* * *

That evening after they had dropped anchor, Erick had almost fallen asleep when he noticed the eerie sound of something singing. It had the timbre of a human voice, but a lingering resonance like a whale song. Its pitch rose and fell with a forlorn tone. Knowing it was coming from the deck, Erick stepped into his boots and hurried out of his cabin. Talia had already come out of her cabin with Reena and looked similarly baffled by the singing.

Eustace, Flynn, and Dunley sat up on their hammocks as Erick passed them. “What’s going on?” Flynn asked first, getting to his feet.

“Is that the merman?” Eustace asked, looking up at the deck.

“Yeah, it’s the damn fiend,” Erick answered. “He’s finally awake again and now he’s trying to keep us up all night.”

Flynn and Eustace shared a doubtful look. Dunley frowned at Erick and said, “He just sounds sad to me, Captain.”

“Well, I don’t care if he’s sad,” Erick said as he went upstairs. “He’s coming back to land with us whether it likes it or not.”

On the deck, Erick marched up to the merman’s tank. “Hey!” he called, making the merman flinch. “My crew and I are trying to sleep.” The merman clenched his hands in front of his chest, shrinking away from the glass. “Well? Are you going to keep quiet now?”

Silas watched the human shout with increasing worry. “I don’t know what you want from me.” He curled his tail around himself, wincing slightly as it pulled on his stitches. It hadn’t stopped hurting since he woke back up, and the tank’s water felt heavy in his chest.

Erick hit the tank with his fist and rested his arm against it above his head, irritated that he couldn’t understand what he was saying. “Is that supposed to be an apology or a question?”

Flinching again at the sound of his hand against the glass, Silas said, “Please, I just want to go back home.” He had been singing a signal song that meant, “I’m lost. Help me,” hoping that his siren voice would be able to carry down to the water below the ship. Unlike his speaking voice, he and all other merfolk could use their siren voice to project signal songs across vast distances. He didn’t know if Gale would be able to find him if he stopped singing, but he also didn’t want to give the human a reason to hurt him again.

Erick scowled at the merman. It was obvious that the merman did actually know some kind of language, but Erick had no idea if he was just trying to trick him or if he truly didn’t understand him at all either.

Silas stared back at the human, equally at a loss, but trying to decide what his plans for him were. He knew plenty of horror stories of what happened to merfolk who got captured by humans. Most of them ended up dead, but those who lived usually ended up on display in private collections or traveling freak shows. Since his captors seemed to want him alive, Silas could only assume that they were going to try to make money off of him. To do that, they would need to make sure he stayed presentable. How much they were willing to do to keep him healthy was another question entirely.

Hesitantly, Silas uncurled his tail and pointed at his stitches. “This hurts. Do you have medicine?” He pantomimed rubbing a salve over his wound. “Please?”

Erick frowned. “So you do just need painkillers.” He turned back towards the stairs below deck, where Talia and the others waited. They were all giving him judgmental looks for yelling at the merman. “What?” he demanded, holding out his hands. “Would you all have rather listen to him whine all night?”

Flynn and Eustace escaped back downstairs. Dunley sighed and shook his head. Talia rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, answering, “We’d rather you be nicer to the thing. You’ve proven merfolk exist, but it just feels like we’ve kidnapped some kid instead of caught a monster.”

“You shouldn’t let his appearance get to you. Just because his face looks human doesn’t mean he’s actually like us.”

“So you say, but he sure is cowering a lot for a monster.” Talia turned on her heel and returned below deck.

“If you’re going to argue, would you at least bring back up the surgeon’s kit?”

“Fine,” she called back up.

Dunley walked up beside Erick and looked more closely at the merman now that he was awake. Glancing over at his captain, he asked, “What exactly is our plan with this kid?”

“We’re taking him to my uncle and then showing him to the Navy Admiral and anyone else who matters,” Erick answered curtly. “That’s always been the plan.”

“All right, but can we actually keep him in a tank this small?” Dunley gestured to how the merman’s tail couldn’t lay flat against the bottom, as it had to curl up against the side or around the edges.

“Ivan has a pool at his estate. I’m sure he can pour some more salt into it to make it work for him,” Erick said, nodding towards the merman. “He seems fine for now.”

“So you do plan to keep him? We’re not going to bring him back to the ocean?”

“Why would we?” Erick asked. “There must be dozens of people who’d want the chance to study him.”

Dunley tugged on his beard, lowering his eyebrows.

Erick sighed. “Look, I know all of you think I’m crazy, but I have been trying to catch these fiends for _years_. You all knew that when I brought you aboard. I’m not about to just let the first one I’ve ever caught go free again so easily.”

“ _We_ caught him, and all we saw him do was look at stuff from the wreck.” Dunley turned to return below deck as Talia came back with the surgeon’s kit. “We’ll help you get him to your uncle, but I won’t stand for you or anyone else mistreating him any more than we are already.”

Erick shook his head, but said, “Fine.” He took the surgeon kit from Talia and opened it up. “I’m caring for him now, so you all can stop looking at me like I’m the bad guy here.” He shook out two pills from a bottle and passed the kit back to Talia. “I know none of you thought we’d actually catch one, but you could at least be a little happier for me.”

“It’s hard to be happy when the fish is guilt tripping us.” Talia held the wooden ladder they had hooked to the side of the tank as Erick climbed up.

“He just wants you to feel bad so we let him go.” Erick rapped his knuckles against the grate over the top of the tank. “Hey, fiend, come get your medicine.”

“I’d do the same if you put me in a fish tank,” Talia said, looking over at the merman as he pushed himself up from the bottom of the tank.

Silas hooked his fingers over the grate and lifted his head above the water. He pushed his hair away from his face and looked at the strange, white pills in the human’s hand. It seemed like medicine, but Silas worried that it could just make him feel worse.

“Swallow these.” Erick put his hand through the grate towards the merman. To make his point more clear, he used his other hand to point at them and then at his mouth. It seemed for a moment that the merman wouldn’t take them, but then his hand cautiously lifted out of the water beneath Erick’s. Erick dropped the pills onto his palm. “That’s all we have to help your tail, so you’re just going to have to suck it up if it’s not enough.”

Silas tilted his head at the human, wondering what he said before he looked back down at the pills. Their chalky texture was melting in the water on his skin. Frowning somewhat, Silas murmured, “Thank you.” He knocked back both of them before his courage could fail and grimaced at their bitter taste. “Bleck!” Silas stuck out his tongue and quickly sucked up some water to rinse out his mouth. Looking indignantly at his captor, he said, “That was disgusting. How can you humans stand this stuff?”

Taken aback by the merman’s overdramatic reaction, Erick laughed. “Don’t be mad at me. I could’ve just let you suffer.”

Silas lowered his head so his nose went underwater. He exhaled bubbles and scowled at him.

The merman’s petulant look only made Erick laugh more. “Jeez, you are really grumpy now.” He looked down at Talia. “Look at him, can you see his face?”

“Not really, and I don’t particularly want to laugh at him.”

“Killjoy.” Erick climbed back down the ladder. “Let’s just hope he stays quiet now.”

“I doubt he will, but I’ll leave it to you to deal with it if he doesn’t.”

“Fair enough.” Erick gestured for her to go on and he followed her back below deck. Erick settled back into his bed just as the merman began singing again. With a groan, Erick turned over and put his pillow over his head. They would only have to listen to it for one more day. He could let the dumb fish have that little mercy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this Sunday, but it slipped my mind. I haven't been able to get very much progress on Go Off the Deep End. I've been dabbling with other writing projects instead, trying to see if it might refresh my interest, but no such luck...

The merman stopped singing only much later that night, so it took Erick more effort than usual to make himself get up the following morning. After he stopped by the kitchen to get a bowl of porridge from Reena, he went to the deck to eat and approve Dunley’s course for the day. They had at least a day and a half of sailing left to do before they would return to port at Anvil Point. Erick hoped they could shrink that estimate, and not just because he was impatient. The merman’s condition was getting worse.

They had found the merman once again at the bottom of the tank, but Erick had assumed it was just because he was asleep. Yet as the morning wore on to noon, the merman still hadn’t moved and seemed to be barely breathing.

Talia came up beside Erick as he stood at the helm. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on the ship’s compass as he kept them on course, but his gaze kept drifting to the unmoving merman. Talia looked sidelong at Erick’s staring. “You should see if he’ll be up to eating anything,” she said, taking the wheel. “Reena should be done with lunch soon.”

“Okay.” Somewhat reluctantly, Erick let Talia take over to get food for the merman. They were fortunate enough to have fresh apples with their supply of hardtack and dried meat since they never were out at sea for very long, so Erick had Reena cut one into slices. He assumed the merman probably only ate fish, unless he was a man-eater, but they didn’t have any preserved and couldn’t waste time to try to catch any.

Erick returned to the merman’s tank and tapped the glass near his head. “Hey, wake up.” The merman blearily opened his eyes and looked over at Erick. “I brought you something to eat,” he said, holding up a plate with the apple, two hardtack biscuits, and a strip of dried beef. The merman made a face at the plate.

“Don’t be like that. You need to eat something.” Erick went up the ladder and looked back down into the water. “Come on up and take it.” He tapped the top of the grate, but the merman didn’t move.

Silas knew he should be hungry since he hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday morning, but he couldn’t muster the energy to care. His whole tail kept hurting no matter how he tried to sit at the bottom of the tank, and he felt like he was suffocating in the stifling heat of the sun warming the water. It almost even seemed like his gills were shriveling up.

“Hello?” Erick picked up an apple slice and dropped it through the grate. It plopped down into the water and bobbed back up to the surface. “I know it’s not fish, but you should still like it.” Erick continued staring at the merman, becoming more worried the longer the merman remained unresponsive. “You stupid fish, get up. Are you just moping or are you actually sick?”

Since the merman continued ignoring him, Erick sighed through his nose and moved aside the plate. “Will you move if you think you can escape?” he asked, opening up the grate. He let it rest against the side of the tank and looked back down into the water.

Silas lifted up his head to look at the surface, confused. He couldn’t imagine whatever reason the human had to open the tank would be good, so he stayed at the bottom and hoped the human would just leave him alone.

“You just don’t want to move at all, do you?” Despite his better judgement, Erick risked the chance that the merman might bite him again and stuck his hand into the water. The warmth of the water surprised him as he splashed it around with his fingers. “Are you just too hot?”

Erick rested his hands on either side of the tank’s rim. He was certain now that the merman’s health was ailing, but he didn’t know what to do about it. If the merman died before they got to shore, would anyone believe he had been a living creature? Or would everyone think he was just a human corpse attached to a fish tail? Erick’s grip on the tank tightened. Would the merman even survive if they tried to return him to the ocean now?

“You can’t die on me now,” Erick said, quickly climbing back down the ladder. “I’ve waited too fucking long to catch one of you damn fiends, and I’ll be damned if I let you get away this way.”

Erick called over Flynn and Eustace and told them to get buckets. If the merman was burning up, the least they could do was put fresh water into his tank. After he had his deckhands help him scoop out the warm water and replace it, Erick fetched some spare sailcloth to tie up a makeshift awning over the merman’s tank. By the time he was finished, he was slick with sweat and frustrated that the merman only looked minimally better.

The cooler water helped Silas feel somewhat more refreshed, but it still felt too heavy in his chest. His lungs and gills seemed to be growing weaker with every breath. His tail continued hurting and had become stiff, refusing to bend except near the middle. He wanted to stretch it out to see if it would help, but that meant getting up.

“What more do I have to do to make you better?” Erick asked, glaring at the merman through the glass. Since the merman still wouldn’t respond, Erick sighed. He reclosed the grate and put the merman’s plate of food on top in case he decided to come up for it if he left him alone.

When they dropped anchor that evening, the merman was still at the bottom of his tank. Flynn and Eustace were betting to see whether or not he would survive through the night. Dunley was giving Erick the cold shoulder. As the stars came out that evening, Erick remained on the deck, sitting against a mast as he watched the merman. His forearm rested on his propped up knee as his other hand rested on his leg.

Talia came back onto the deck after everyone went to bed. Looking at the merman and then Erick, she said, “Unless you’re going to set him free, you should go get some sleep. Watching him isn’t going to change anything.”

Erick’s jaw tightened. “I don’t care. I can’t just leave him like this.”

“Careful now. You’re making it sound like you almost actually care about him.”

“Don’t be an ass.” Erick looked away. “We need him alive.”

Talia arched an eyebrow. “So you can convince other people to kill merfolk for you? If you can’t handle this one dying, how—?”

“It’s different, okay?” Erick snapped. “This one isn’t completely evil. It’s probably because he’s still a kid or something.”

“Sure,” Talia said, rolling her eyes. “Just get some sleep eventually, okay? We’ll need you to figure out how to get his tank off our ship tomorrow.”

Erick sighed. “Okay.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay... I think I'm gonna have to extend my hiatus for GOtDE. I'll post one update for it tomorrow, just to let readers know since not everyone is following the updates here, and then figure out what to do from there. In the mean time, I still have about 4-7 weeks of this alternate story to post (depending on how often I update each week).

Silas felt himself drifting out of consciousness as the night grew dark, but he only felt scared instead of relieved. Every breath now felt like a conscious effort rather than instinct. His gills were taut, more like thin slits in his chest than feathery layers. The human he bit was still watching him. Silas didn’t know why he hadn’t gone to bed yet. He didn’t have the energy to ponder why.

Silas’ tail was starting to ache more in his current position, so he put his hands down on the bottom of the tank to try to readjust himself. His arms trembled with the effort. Silas then froze as he looked at his tail. His crimson and gold scales were fading. The glimmering colors of his tail had become translucent as the divide between his skin and scales had shifted down to a horrifying joint that looked like human legs under his skin.

Silas backed against the glass and screamed. His wound hadn’t gotten infected. He was turning human. His sluggish mind couldn’t process why, but he now knew why he was struggling to breathe. He was drowning.

Erick had been dozing against the mast when the merman’s scream startled him awake. “What the…?” He looked over towards the tank and saw the merman’s back and arms pressed up against the glass, as if trying to get away from something. Thinking the merman had woken from a nightmare, Erick wiped a hand over his face and pushed himself up.

As Erick walked over, he asked, “What’s wrong now, you dumb fish?” He was about to tap on the glass to get his attention, but then saw the merman’s tail. “Jesus Christ!” The merman heard him curse and turned his head. His eyes were wide with terror. He put his hand against the glass, reaching up towards Erick. His chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths.

“Shit.” Erick climbed up the ladder and opened up the grate. “What the fuck is happening to you?” he asked as he looked down into the water. The merman tried to push himself up, but his tail buckled at its weird joint. He looked back up at Erick and reached for him again before his arm fell limply back down.

“Oh god.” The sight chilled Erick. “You need to get out.” Erick couldn’t reach him at the bottom, so he jumped back down from the ladder to grab a rope. He made a bowline knot at the end, climbed back up the ladder, and tossed the rope into the tank. “Put that under your arms! I’ll pull you up.”

Silas couldn’t understand the human’s shouting, but he heard the fear in his voice. It confused him. Why was he scared? Silas stared dumbly as a rope with a loop at the end floated down in front of his face. What was it for? He weakly took hold of the end of it. The rope then pulled up, sliding out of his fingers.

“Come on, hold on you damn fish!” Erick shouted, lowering the rope again. “I don’t want to have to climb into your stupid tank!”

As the rope came down again, Silas then realized the human was trying to help him out. He put one arm through the loop and hooked it under his shoulder as he grabbed hold of the rope with both hands.

“Finally!” Erick began pulling up the merman. His tail straightened out as he rose, making the shape of ill-formed human bones all the more obvious. The sight made Erick feel sick.

The moment Silas’ head breached the surface, he gasped and coughed. The air instantly made him feel lighter, but water remained in his chest. The human’s grip on the rope was the only thing holding him up.

Erick realized as he watched the merman sputter that he would need help to get him out of the tank, as he couldn’t hold the rope and pull him out at the same time without dropping him onto the deck. Turning to face the stairs below deck, he shouted, “Dunley! Anybody! Get up and help me!” The merman leaned his head against the rim of the tank and continued taking big gulps of air. It bubbled through his nearly closed gills.

Flynn was the first to come out, but faltered when he saw Erick and the merman. “What are you doing to him?” Eustace and Dunley then followed.

“Trying to fucking save him,” Erick retorted. “Get over here and help me get him out.”

Though still bewildered, the three men joined Erick. Dunley took the rope so Erick could reach into the tank and grab the merman under his arms. The merman could do little to help besides hook his arms around Erick’s neck. As soon as Erick managed to twist the merman around to get his tail out, Flynn and Eustace reached up to take him and lower him onto the deck. The merman still seemed to have trouble breathing, but his breaths were beginning to deepen and even out. His scales looked like they were melting away with the water dripping off his tail.

Dunley stared at him, aghast, while Flynn and Eustace seemed equal parts disgusted and fascinated. Uncertainly, Eustace said, “It’s like he’s turned into some kind of fishy caterpillar.”

Flynn looked surprised at the idea. “You think he’s metamorphosing into a human? That’d make him more like a damselfly than a butterfly, though, wouldn’t it?”

“What’s the difference?” Eustace asked.

“Well, damselflies lay eggs in water, so—”

“Guys!” Erick snapped. “He’s not a fucking bug. He needs a towel and some clothes now.”

Dunley looked up at Erick. “So he really is turning into a human?”

“That’s what it fucking looks like!” Since Flynn and Eustace still hadn’t moved, Erick shouted, “Get going! He’ll need Flynn’s clothes since he’s smallest.”

“What?” Flynn said, offended. “My pants would be way too long for him.”

“Then we’ll roll up the ends,” Erick answered. “You’ll get them back later.”

Despite his reluctance, Flynn went with Eustace back below deck. Erick turned back to the merman as he waited for them to return.

Kneeling down beside Erick, Dunley asked, “How is this possible? This can’t be permanent, right?”

“I don’t know.” Erick grit his teeth. “All I know is that we’re now stuck with a merman that won’t be able to prove jack shit anymore.”

Dunley hadn’t considered that fact. He frowned and tugged on his beard.

As soon as his deckhands returned, Erick wrapped the merman in towels. His tailfin had already shrunk into toes and a dip formed down the middle of his tail where it would split into legs. As Erick dried off his hair, he found that round ears replaced the odd fins on either side of his face. Erick couldn’t tell if the merman had fallen unconscious while he worked or if he was just too delirious to respond.

Flynn still held his clothes for the merman as he watched Erick work. “Where are we going to put him now?” he asked. “We don’t have any extra hammocks.”

“I’ll put him in my bed,” Erick answered. “It’ll only be for one night.”

“Are you going to dress him too?” Flynn asked, holding up his clothes. “Because I don’t really want to see this merman’s dick.”

Erick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, fine.” He put his arms under the merman’s back and legs to pick him up. “Just put his clothes on top of him and I’ll take care of it.”

Once all four men returned below deck, Erick went into his cabin and shut his door with his heel. He put the merman down onto his bed. Sitting down heavily at his desk, Erick sighed and ran his hands over his face. “God, what am I going to do with you?” He let his wrists fall to his knees and stared at the unconscious merman’s face.

Erick’s first thought was to just dump the merman overboard and let him find his way back home on his own, but the way the merman had reacted to his transforming tail suggested that it wasn’t a voluntary change. If that was indeed the case, throwing him back into the ocean would be as good as killing him.

If Erick had to keep him as he was now, that completely changed the set of responsibilities he was expecting. Before, he figured he could just keep him in a tank and feed him fish. Now they would have to clothe and feed him and actually keep care of him like a person instead of an animal. He didn’t even want to think about what his uncle would think about this news. He never said anything about merfolk being able to turn human. Did he even know it was possible?

Shaking his head, Erick made himself get back up and return to the bed. He moved aside the clothes to unwrap the merman. Beneath all the towels, Erick found that his transformation had finished. Smooth, pale skin now covered where his scales and gills used to be. His legs had become evenly proportioned, if a bit on the skinny side. Faint contours of lean muscle covered the rest of his body. As Erick stared, he caught himself wanting to touch his chest.

“No!” Erick face-palmed. “What the hell, I can’t… That’s just sick. He’s a fucking fish boy.”

Yet as much as he wanted to deny it, the merman looked precious, laying so vulnerably on Erick’s bed. His tousled, golden hair was beginning to lighten and puff up as it dried. Softly, with the deepness of sleep, his breath passed through his slightly parted lips.

“Nope, not doing it.” Erick shook his head and picked up the pants Flynn grabbed for him. “He’s three different tickets to hell.” He put each of the merman’s feet into the pants and sat down on the end of the bed. As he hiked them up, Erick tried to avoid looking at the merman’s dick, but he couldn’t help but notice the distinctly not male part beneath it.

“Well, _that’s_ different,” Erick said, turning away his head. Baffled that the merman was quite possibly a mermaid instead, Erick quickly pulled up his pants the rest of the way and buttoned them. They were still too big since he was so short and slender, so Erick found a bit of twine to thread through the belt loops.

Putting on his shirt was both easier and more awkward, as the merman’s head kept lolling against Erick’s chest while he pulled his sleeves over his arms. When the merman was fully dressed, he looked like a perfectly normal, adolescent boy.

“I guess that’s done,” Erick said, standing back up. He tucked the merman under his blankets and took the top comforter and his pillow for himself. Laying himself down on the floor beside his bed, Erick stared up at the ceiling.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone... I'm sorry I've been absent lately. I know I said I'd update GOtDE, but I didn't want to put up an update that had a cliffhanger. Instead I've marked it as being on hiatus indefinitely. I still have a rough idea of how I want to get to the end of the story, which is basically the Christmas special I uploaded a few weeks ago, but I guess I've just burnt myself out with merfolk. 
> 
> For a long story short, figuring out all the stuff with the merpirates just wasn't fun for me. Adriel served as something to push the romance plot, not be the main conflict. I started it because of the relationship I developed between Erick and Silas. Because their relationship is basically resolved all but officially, it's hard for me to motivate myself to find anything new to explore with them. The only conflict left is figuring out human-merfolk relations, which I see ending rather anticlimactically. There wouldn't be some epic fight between Erick and Adriel. Maybe they will go to war, but that's not the story I set out to write. It was about a guy dealing with the dysphoria of becoming a merman and accepting his bisexuality, along with problems from alcoholism and grief. Erick is still stuck in his anxiety, and always will be, and Silas can only there and supportive. I just feel like I'm beating a dead horse at this point.
> 
> I'm welcome to ideas if you have any to get over this roadblock. I still want to finish merfolk. I just feel like I've reached the point where I should be revising/rewriting old chapters, rather than continuing to plow forward.

When Silas woke, he thought he was still dreaming. His body felt warm and was surrounded by soft, puffy cloth. Rather than the familiar hum of deep water around coral, splashing waves and a strange myriad of creaks and groans sounded outside the wooden walls. Sunlight lit the small space through a porthole window. He realized he was in a ship cabin, but it took him a full minute to comprehend he was above water.

The realization made Silas jolt upright. “Oh, gods!” He looked down at his hand and put it over his mouth. “I’m breathing _air._ ” He lifted up his shirt to look at his gills, but found they had completely disappeared. Then he looked at his blankets. “Oh no… No!” Silas tossed them aside and gaped at his new legs. “My tail! Why…?” His toes ended where his tailfin used to begin. Hesitantly, his fingers touched one of his knees. He flinched at the unfamiliar bones.

Tears welled up in Silas’ eyes. “This can’t be happening. I can’t…” He grabbed his blankets and buried his face into them, unable to stop himself from sobbing. His chest felt too empty, hiccupping with air. His voice sounded both too loud and small out of water. Every inch of his legs was completely alien. The scratchiness of his pants only emphasized the divide where his tail split. He didn’t understand how he was supposed to move his new limbs, only that every way he did felt wrong.

At the sound of the merman crying, Erick woke up and groaned. His back and shoulders ached from sleeping on the floor. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and looked at the merman. “Great,” he muttered. “The fish didn’t want to be human either.” He pulled on his boots and stood up, rotating at his hips to stretch. His spine popped and it helped somewhat. He picked up his pillow and comforter and tossed them back onto his bed. The merman looked up, startled, as if he hadn’t noticed Erick was in the room. His tear-streaked face twisted a pang of sympathy in Erick.

“You don’t have to get up yet,” Erick said, looking away. “I’ll get you breakfast and then we’ll figure out what to do with you.”

“What are you saying?” Silas sniffled, not knowing what to do with all the water and snot coming out of his face. He wanted to dive back into the ocean to wash it off. “Why am I here?”

The desperate sound in the merman’s voice made Erick frown. “I’ll be right back, okay?” He turned and opened the door.

“Wait!” Silas reached for the human. “Don’t—” He leaned over too far and fell face-first onto the floor. The blankets tangled around his legs, trapping him still half-way on the bed.

“Huh?” Erick winced at his fall. “Jesus Christ, you’re a klutz.” He bent over the bed and untangled the merman’s legs. Kneeling down beside him, he asked. “Are you okay?”

Silas pushed himself up with one arm and held his forehead with his free hand. “Ow…” He turned to look at his legs and pulled them off the bed, but ended up falling on his hip and knees. “Ah!” He hissed through his teeth and clenched his hands. Beginning to cry more, he asked, “Why does falling have to hurt above water?”

“God dammit.” Erick sighed. “You don’t know how to use your legs.” He held out his hand. “Come on, I’ll help you up.” It took the merman a minute to notice the proffered hand. Hesitantly he took it, then yelped when Erick pulled him upright. The top of his head was level with Erick’s shoulders. His legs didn’t seem able to hold his weight at first, so Erick helped hold him upright until he was standing more or less on his own. He had to lean on Erick’s arm to stay balanced. His legs continued shaking, threatening to give out with every rise and fall of the waves under the ship.

“Okay,” Erick said, turning him towards the doorway. “Think you can walk now?”

Silas tightly gripped the human’s arm with both hands, trying to process the feeling of his toes pressed against the wood floor under the weight of his body. It was almost like being pulled into a whirlpool without the spinning.

“Just follow me and take one step at a time.” Erick stepped forward, catching the merman off-guard. His knees buckled forward. “Whoa there!” Before he could fall, Erick grabbed the merman’s hands on his arm and pulled him back up. “Christ, this would be so much easier if you could just understand what I’m saying.” Enunciating more slowly, he said, “Step forward.” He pointed at his boot. “Use your feet like this.” He took another step forward.

Silas tried to copy him, but couldn’t figure out how to stay upright on one foot while he moved the other one. The constant swaying of the ship didn’t make it any easier. He ended up stubbing his toe and swore.

Erick looked skyward and groaned, “You’re completely hopeless.” Rather than try to continue teaching him, Erick pushed the merman back to the bed to sit him down. He fell backwards onto his elbows. “Just stay here.” Erick held up his hand like he was trying to train a dog. “I’ll be right back.” The merman looked dismayed, as if he thought Erick was telling him that he was leaving forever. Erick face-palmed with both hands. “Fine!” He dragged his fingers down his face. “I’ll just fucking carry you.”

Making him give a startled yelp, Erick scooped back up the merman into his arms and carried him to the kitchen. Inside the cramped space packed with barrels of provisions, he found Talia talking to Reena in front of the stove.

“Is breakfast ready?” Erick asked from the doorway.

“Yes,” Reena answered, turning to face him. “I—is that the merman?”

Erick deadpanned at her. “No, it’s a rat I found behind some barrels.”

Talia snickered. “Okay, so why are you carrying him around like you just got married?”

“He doesn’t know how to fucking walk, that’s why,” Erick retorted, feeling heat rise in his face. He hoped Talia hadn’t heard him talking to the merman last night, since she had slept through their ordeal getting him out of the tank. He assumed Dunley or one of the others explained what happened. “The dumbass fell flat on his face when he tried to get out of my bed and he didn’t want to be left alone in my room.”

“Uh-huh.” Talia continued smirking. The merman looked at the two of them with a mixture of confusion and concern, clearly lost on the context of their conversation. “I think you’ve gone soft. Can’t hate the little merboy anymore now that he’s got legs.”

“Shut up. I just didn’t want him to hurt himself any more by trying to follow me.”

“Sure,” she said, bouncing her eyebrows.

“Do you want me to drop him?” Erick asked, scowling at her. “Because I will.”

Reena looked anxiously at the two of them. “Captain, why don’t you just leave him here? I’ll keep an eye on him while you get the ship on course.”

Erick frowned at her. “Are you sure? I don’t even think he knows how to stay sitting up without falling over.”

“Well, you can put him on the floor then,” Reena said. “I’m sure there’s something I can do to keep him occupied.”

“If you’re certain.” Erick side-stepped into the kitchen and sat the merman down in the corner. The merman grabbed the rim of a barrel to stay upright. “Stay here,” Erick told him, holding out his hand in front of him again to emphasize his meaning.

Silas looked at his hand before frowning at the human. “Why did you put me down here?” He then looked around, wondering what the room they were in was supposed to be. A stack of plates on the counter told him it must be a kitchen, but he had never seen one so fully stocked before. The ships he explored underwater were almost always emptied by other salvagers or overrun with coral. When he noticed Erick turning to leave, he leaned forward to try to follow him. “Hey, where are you going now?”

Talia stared at the merman for a moment before looking at Erick again and laughing. “I think you’re his favorite. He’s imprinted on you like a duckling.”

Erick groaned, “Why?” He held out his hands. “I don’t like him.”

“You’re the one that’s been keeping care of him,” Talia said.

“I’m also the one that shot him with a harpoon and stuck him into a giant fish tank,” Erick answered. “There is no rational reason for him to like any of us because of that.”

Talia shrugged. “True, but he doesn’t have much choice but to stay on our good side now.”

“I guess.” Erick shook his head. “The sooner we get to shore, the sooner I can give him to my uncle to deal with.”

After Reena gave him breakfast, Erick once again told the merman to stay put before he went with Talia to the deck.

Silas pouted as they left. He straightened out his legs with his hands and then leaned back against the barrels behind him. The wood floor wasn’t comfortable to sit on. With a huff, he crossed his arms. He wouldn’t have been so annoyed with the humans if they hadn’t kept treating him like a child, but Silas knew that they probably couldn’t help it because of their language barrier. Considering he also couldn’t walk and was so much shorter than them, it then occurred to him that they probably did think he was actually a child. The knowledge only made him more frustrated.

Seeing the merman pouting, Reena smiled sympathetically. “It’ll be okay, little merman.” She picked up an apple and a knife and gathered up her skirts to sit down beside him. “Do you want to try an apple?” She held it out towards him. “You never ate anything yesterday, so you must be hungry.”

Silas looked curiously at the strange fruit and took it. He turned it over in his hands. Giving it a cautious sniff, he found it smelled sweet. “How am I supposed to eat this?” he asked, pointing at it.

Misunderstanding his question, Reena said, “It’s called an apple.” She pointed at it and repeated the word, sounding out the syllables.

“Apple?” Silas echoed, tilting his head. The woman smiled and repeated the word again, continuing to point at the fruit. Then Silas realized what she was doing. “Oh. You’re telling me what this is called.” His eyes lit up. Leaning forward, he pointed to himself and grinned. “I’m Silas.” He repeated his name, sounding it out just as she did. When she said his name, he vigorously nodded. “Yes, Silas!” He pointed at the apple again and said its name, then pointed at her. “What’s your name?”

Bemused by the merman’s suddenly improved mood, Reena smiled back and told him her name.

“Reena.” Silas nodded as he repeated it. “Okay, that’s one name down. Now I just have to figure out everyone else’s names.” He put his hand on his chin, wondering how he would figure out everything else he needed to know. The biggest question he still had was what they were planning to do with him. They could have used him for all sorts of things before he changed, but now he had legs. Why were they still keeping him now? And why in the great seven seas did he turn into a human? The only way he knew that could happen was through a blood binding, but he didn’t…

Silas dropped his hand. “Wait a second.” He had bitten that human. His blood got in his mouth. “But that couldn’t be enough on its own, could it?” A blood binding required both people in the binding to draw blood from each other and kiss the wound. Then Silas remembered that the human had drawn blood from him too with the harpoon. Did his blood get into the human’s mouth while he was stitching up the wound?

The possibility made Silas feel faint. A blood binding was supposed to be the final rite of marriage. If the love between a human and a mer was pure enough, the gods could bless their marriage and allow them to live together either on land or in the ocean.

“The gods can’t be serious!” Silas pushed his hand through his hair, reeling at the idea that the human he bit was supposed to be his true love. “I don’t even know his name.”

Silas leaned back against the barrels. He looked up at the ceiling, hoping that he was wrong. Though he was obsessed with things he could find in shipwrecks and had always found humans fascinating, he couldn’t see himself living on land permanently. He couldn’t live without ever seeing his friends and family again, especially not with how he got taken away.

As Reena watched the merman’s expression abruptly change from thoughtful to dismayed, she wished she knew what was going through his mind. It made her feel guilty that she had helped hold him down on the deck after Erick pulled him up. Hoping to cheer him up, she pointed to his apple and held up her knife. “Would you like me to cut that into slices for you?”

“Huh?” Silas looked at her hand and then the apple and the knife. “What do you want to do with it?” He passed it over to her and watched as she cut it in half and then again into quarters. After she cut out the seeds, she held out a piece for him to take. Fascinated by how the inside looked wet, Silas accepted it and took a small bite. His eyebrows rose. “It’s good!”

“You like it?” Reena smiled. “Here.” She held out the rest for him to take. After she watched him eat for a minute, she then got up to serve him a bowl of porridge. It steamed as she sat back down. “This is hot, so be careful.”

Silas’ eyes widened at the steam. “What is that?” He put down the apple slices and reached to take the bowl, but recoiled when he felt how warm it was. “It’s hot?” His head spun to look at the stove. Pointing at it, he asked, “How does that work?”

Reena laughed. “That’s a stove.” She set down the bowl next to Silas and went to it to show him how it worked. “We burn coal in here,” she said, using a rag to open the fuel door. The coal inside had burned down to smolders, but it still glowed red beneath the ash.

“Whoa…” Silas curled in his legs to lean forward on his hands and knees for a better look. A wash of warm air ran over his face. “Is that magic?” He knew enchanters could use siren singing to do all sorts of things with the help of spirits, but he thought humans had lost that ability.

“Oh!” Reena held out her hand in front of Silas. “Don’t get too close. You’ll get burned.”

Silas tilted his head. “What?” The coals then sparked, making him flinch. “Is that normal?”

“See, that’s what I was saying.” Reena closed the door. “Come on, let’s get away from the stove now.” She sat back down and patted the space beside her. “You should finish your breakfast.”

Silas pouted since he wanted to continue looking at the coals, but nevertheless rejoined her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, as for an update about my personal life, I met with a psychiatrist last Wednesday. It's looking like I have anxiety/depression, which *really* shouldn't have been as surprising to me as it was. I had figured depression was a possibility, but I hadn't considered anxiety at all because I have a few friends who have it way worse than me. However, I learned PTSD is a type of anxiety, and considering my history with my mom... It makes perfect sense that my anxiety is just C-PTSD. The things I thought were ADHD symptoms were just the combination of those things. 
> 
> So, I suppose I have a decent excuse now for why my writing always comes in waves. Whenever I get writer's block, it's probably me just getting stuck in a depressive episode.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! If you've been waiting/hoping to see an update, thank you so much for being patient with me. I really appreciate your comments and kudos, even though I haven't been replying to anyone. As most of you have probably seen based on my previous update on Go Off the Deep End (the chapter explaining my extended hiatus), I've been struggling. I'm doing better, frustratingly slowly, but I'm making progress nevertheless.
> 
> I still haven't really written anything for merfolk, mostly because I decided I needed to take a break from it entirely, but it's also because I've started taking an antidepressant. I don't know yet if it's helping or not. I think it makes it harder for me to focus/write in general, but it helps my mood sort of? Those of you on meds, how did you decide what works/doesn't work for you? Since my symptoms were mild to begin with, it's hard to tell if there's really any significant change.
> 
> My current goal is to update this story or post *something* at least once a month here to keep you in the loop of what's going on with me. I'll always use the notes on my stories to write about what's going on in my life. Additionally, I've gone ahead and made a Twitter @AceyDark. You can always DM me there or via my tumblr (even though I'm rarely on there these days).

Over the course of the morning, Reena continued showing Silas things around the kitchen and trying to teach him English. When Erick and Dunley came down to get lunch for everyone on deck, the two found the cook and the merman excited to show off what he learned.

Erick arched an eyebrow at their grins. “Reena, what did you do to make his face look like that?” The merman looked like he would have been jumping up and down if he knew how to use his legs.

Reena laughed. “Just watch.” She looked at Silas and asked, “What is your name?”

“My name is Silas!” he answered in English, sitting up proudly. He faced Erick. “What is your name?” The sound of each of his words flowed into the next with a strong emphasis on the vowels, mirroring how he spoke in his language.

Erick’s mouth dropped. “You taught him how to talk?”

“Yeah.” Smiling sheepishly, Reena added, “He’s still doesn’t know everything yet of course, but he’s been working really hard to figure it out. So, do you guys want to introduce yourselves?”

Dunley grinned. “Of course!” He knelt down to Silas’ level. “My name is Dunley. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Silas.”

“Dunley.” Silas nodded and echoed back, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Silas didn’t know what that second sentence meant, but it felt right to repeat it anyway. He didn’t really understand what he was saying either, only that the string of sounds made them give him the name of things.

“Hey, would you listen to that?” Dunley said, looking up at Erick. “He’s a fast learner.”

Erick frowned at him. “I think he’s just copying you.”

“Eh, so what?” Dunley stood back up. “That’s how kids learn. As soon as my kids learned a few words, they started talking nonstop.”

“But your kids are a lot younger than him,” Erick said. “Just repeating everything we say can’t help him that much.”

“It’s a sure sight better than not saying anything at all. Just play along to help him practice.”

Erick rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He looked down at the merman and found him staring anxiously at him. Erick’s lack of enthusiasm seemed to have upset him. “You’re a fussy thing, aren’t you?” He bent over with his hands on his knees and said, “My name is Erick.”

Silas’ expression immediately lit back up. “Erick. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He then bit his lip, knowing that he now had a name for the man the gods had apparently set him up with. He still wasn’t sure what to think of him since Silas was technically his captive, but he decided that he could give Erick a chance. For all Silas knew, Erick could have had a very good reason to capture him.

“Now he’s making another weird face,” Erick said, confused at Silas’ pensive expression.

Reena half-smiled. “He does that. I think he’s just annoyed that he doesn’t know how to say something.”

“That would make sense,” Dunley said. “We should bring him up onto the deck so he can talk to the others.”

Erick looked at Dunley. “What if he tries going overboard?”

“If he can turn back into a merman and go home, we should let him,” Dunley answered. “There’s no point keeping him if he’s going to keep his legs with us.”

“I guess, but what if he does jump off and doesn’t change back? I don’t think he can swim like this.”

“Then I suppose one of us would have to go pull him back out of the drink.” Dunley held out his hand to help Silas stand. “He needs to practice walking too, anyway.”

“I think you’re overestimating his ability to even attempt it. He can’t stay balanced at all.”

“Well, we shouldn’t be surprised about that,” Dunley said as he helped Silas to his feet. “He went from having one tail to two legs. Now, lend him an arm. We’ll walk him between us so he can get a feel for it’s supposed to go.” To Reena, he said, “We’ll be back down in a minute to get our food.”

“You’re treating him like he’s two,” Erick protested, though he held out his arm for Silas. “Is your plan to adopt him?”

Dunley chuckled. “No, two kid and counting is already too many mouths to feed.”

“Damn.” Erick walked slowly with Dunley, watching Silas shakily take one step at a time with them. “But you and Reena seem to know how to deal with him.” The merman intently stared at his feet as he tried to match Erick’s footsteps.

“I just have more experience,” Dunley said. “You’d have to ask her whatever her secret is.”

“I might just have to.”

As Silas figured out how to swing his legs and move his knees and bend his ankles just right without stubbing his toes, he listened to Erick and Dunley talk and wished he knew what they were saying. Their different tones made Silas think Dunley was teasing Erick, making Silas begin to wonder if being surly was just Erick’s default mood.

On deck, Silas squinted in the sunlight. Below deck had been lit mostly with dim lanterns. Once his eyes adjusted to the change, he breathed deeply in the fresh air. He gasped and laughed when the wind blew his hair into his face. It had never felt so light and fluffy before.

“Seems like he likes it up here,” Dunley said. “Let’s sit him down by the helm.”

Standing at the wheel, Talia smirked as she watched the two men lead the merman over to her. It looked like they were playing with a puppet with how awkwardly the merman moved his feet. “Is it our turn to babysit him now?”

“We’re not babysitting,” Erick answered, giving her a stern look. “Dunley just wanted you guys to properly introduce yourselves to him since Reena taught him some English.”

“She did?” Impressed, Talia nodded. “What’d she teach him?”

Dunley nodded to Silas. “Just ask him his name.”

“All right.” Once she did and Silas answered, Talia looked even more pleased. “So the fish boy does know some tricks.” She faced Erick. “You know I’m going to try to teach him every dirty word I know now, right?”

Erick groaned. “Please don’t.” He moved Silas off his arm to let Dunley help him sit down. “The last thing I need is him cursing at everything.”

“But you curse a lot,” Talia countered.

“So? He’s not some pet for you to play with.”

Talia snorted at that. “We were literally keeping him in a giant fish tank yesterday.” She folded her arms around the top of the wheel and crossed her foot behind her leg. Silas noticed and tried crossing his stretched out legs like hers. “I’m just saying it won’t hurt anything to have some fun.”

“Then get a parrot if you want something to spout bad words.” Erick leaned back against the mast in front of the wheel and crossed his arms. Silas leaned against the railing and did the same, but a large wave knocked him off balance and made him fall onto his side. “It won’t be long until we get back to land, so you can get one as soon as we dock.”

“It’s not the same,” she sighed.

While they talked, Silas put his hands on either side of himself to stay sitting upright. He turned his head to look over the railing as his attention drifted to the ocean. Waves foamed against the ship’s hull. Thin clouds drifted over the horizon. He wondered where Gale was, and if he would return soon. Though Silas knew he only had a slim chance of being found again, he wanted to think the gods would at least give him the chance to say goodbye. He prayed that they would, anyway.

When Silas spotted something surface a minute later, he jerked upright and grabbed the railing to see it better. It dove back under, but not before he saw the glint of a burgundy red tailfin. “Gale?” Silas rolled onto his knees and pulled himself to the railing. “Gale!” He tried to sing the signal song for “I’m here,” but it came out as a hum instead of his siren voice. Shocked, he put his hand over his heart and tried again, but could only use his speaking voice. “What? No, not my siren voice too!”

“Hey, what are you doing?” Erick called, bolting after him. He put his hand on the railing and looked out at the water. His shoulders slumped in confusion. “There’s nothing out there.” Looking down at Silas freaking out, he asked, “What is your problem?”

Talia narrowed her eyes at them. “Is something wrong?”

“I have no idea,” Erick answered. “He’s just—”

Two dozen mers in song-forged glass armor surfaced, encircling the human’s boat. Among them was an unarmored mer with black hair. “Gale!” Silas leaned over the railing. “He did come back!” Beside Gale, he spotted his father, Ronan. “Dad!”

“The fuck?” Erick recoiled at the mers surrounding his ship. “Where—hey!” He saw Silas pulling himself over the railing. “Wait a second!” He grabbed the merman’s shirt just as his legs slid off. “Ah, shit!” Erick nearly fell over with him as he held onto him with one hand. “Shit, shit, _shit_!”

“Ow!” Silas’ shirt dug into his armpits. His legs dangled over the water and hit the side of the ship. “Dad!” He lifted up his arms and twisted away his face to fall out of his shirt. “Ahhh!” He splashed down feet first, but water went up his nose. His legs flailed. He couldn’t see. He opened his mouth to breathe, but water surged to the back of his throat.

“Silas!” Erick saw two mermen dive back under and swim towards him. “Fucking hell.” Erick tossed aside Silas’ shirt and yanked off his boots. “Talia, watch my line,” he said, grabbing a rope before he jumped off after him.

“Wait, fuck!” Talia called. “Erick!” Swearing more, she turned to the others and shouted orders to raise the sails and drop anchor.

Underwater, Erick opened his eyes. One of mermen had a burnt orange tail and was armed with a sword, and the other he recognized as Silas’ friend. A bubble of terror escaped his lips when he saw Silas had gone limp. He spun toward him and kicked his legs.

The two mermen reached him first. The armed one had drawn his sword before he saw Silas’ face. Looking shocked, he put his arm under Silas’ and pulled him up to the surface.

Erick followed them. The one holding him sheathed his sword and shook him as he desperately repeated his name, pushing his hair out of his face. There was a faint family resemblance between the two of them. Silas’ friend saw Erick approaching and drew his knife. He shouted something Erick took as a threat.

“Give him back,” Erick yelled. He pointed at the ship and his rope. “He can’t breathe!” Silas’ friend swiped his knife at him and repeated his threat. “Stop it! Silas is going to die!” Erick pointed at Silas and then at himself, pantomiming getting water out of his chest. “He needs air!”

Silas’ friend just looked confused at Erick’s charades, but the merman holding him seemed to understand. He barked an order to make Silas’ friend move aside so he could bring Silas to Erick.

As soon as Silas was back in his arms, Erick called up to Talia, “Bring us up!” He let his crew do the pulling as he tightly held onto Silas and the rope. The mers encircling the ship swam around to watch his crew take Silas from Erick and lay him down onto the deck. Erick nearly tripped over his own feet as he climbed over the railing to kneel beside him.

“You stupid fish!” Erick said as he checked for his pulse. The merman lay still. His hair had fallen partly over his eyes. Erick plugged the merman’s nose and breathed into his mouth. No response. He switched to chest compressions. “Come on, wake up!” After he bent back down to breath into his mouth again, Silas coughed and turned over to vomit water. Erick slumped back on his knees. “Jesus Christ, don’t do that again!”

Silas had to take a minute to finish getting the water out of his lungs. He kept coughing between gulps of air. His chest burned. Dunley put a towel over his bare shoulders. Once he could breathe despite the pain, Silas looked back at the railing. He couldn’t see Gale or his father over it. “Huh?” he croaked. “Where are they?” He tried to pull himself forward again, but Erick grabbed his arm.

“What did I just say?” Erick snapped. “You can go see them, but you’re not jumping again.” He pulled the towel around Silas’ shoulders tighter and helped him stand. Half-leading, half-dragging, he brought Silas to the railing. The mers below were treading water near the ship’s hull.

Silas leaned over the railing, but Erick’s hand on his shoulder kept him from jumping off again. Seeing his father, Silas broke. “Dad!” he cried. “I want to go home.”

“Silas, it’ll be okay,” Ronan called up to him, though he sounded far from certain. “We’re here now. Are you all right? What happened?”

Gale shouted, “And why in the abyss do you have legs?”

“I don’t know!” Silas buried his face in the towel around his shoulders. Talking made his raw throat hurt more. “It happened last night. I couldn’t breathe in their tank and they had to take me out and I can’t walk and I don’t know what to do!” He felt Erick rub his back and murmur something, but the apparent attempt to console him only made Silas feel worse.

“We’ll figure something out,” Ronan said. “Just calm down. Are you hurt?”

Silas shook his head. “No. The humans haven’t done anything bad since they caught me.” He glanced up at Erick still beside him and noticed he was directing the rest of his crew to lower a lifeboat. “Huh?”

Erick patted Silas’ shoulder and gestured for him to take his arm. “Come on, it’ll be easier for you to talk to your friends if we get you closer to the water.” The merman looked baffled, but hesitantly let Erick help him stand.

Silas made a startled sound as Erick picked him up under his arms and set him into the lifeboat hanging off the back of the ship. Once he was seated, Erick sat down behind him and told Talia and Dunley to lower him down.

“Are you sure about this?” Talia asked. “One of those mermen looked ready to stab you.”

“Yeah, but Silas nearly drowned himself just to be with them,” Erick answered. “And with this many merfolk surrounding us, I really don’t want to see what they can do to my ship.”

“Good point,” Talia conceded. “Just don’t get bit again. We don’t have enough bandages to fix up another set of teeth marks.”

Erick deadpanned at her. “Thanks, that’s really reassuring.”

Talia smirked. “Any time, Captain.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me longer than I planned, but here is the monthly update I promised. I'm still okay and still reevaluating what I want to do with my writing/life, and I think I'm slowly continuing to make progress.
> 
> My merfolk stuff (and all of my creative writing, basically) is all still pretty much at a standstill, but this is mostly due to the fact that I am trying to figure out if I want to stay in grad school or if I want to take a gap year or something. I've let myself branch out a bit and started a D&D campaign with my boyfriend, sister, and another friend, and it's been a nice way to try to ease my way back into a writing mindset by working on my player's backstory and how he fits in with the rest of the team. I might post his journal entries summarizing campaign events if anyone's interested.

Mers surrounded Erick and Silas soon as their lifeboat touched down onto the water. Erick shied away, putting his hand on his knife just in case. The two mermen that Silas had been talking to swam up to the edge of the boat. As Silas leaned over to hug them, Erick swore and grabbed the edge of the boat to rebalance the weight before he could capsize them. “Watch what you’re doing, Silas!”

Silas looked confused at Erick before he noticed him gripping the boat. “Oh, sorry.”

Gale frowned. “Silas, don’t apologize to this shark. He should be the sorry one.”

Ronan was intently studying the human, making him look more uncomfortable. “He does at least seem concerned about Silas’ wellbeing, whatever his reasons are.” He faced his son again. “Explain what happened from the beginning.”

“Okay.” Silas took a deep breath and exhaled. His chest still felt like it was full of hot sand. He started his story with when Erick brought him aboard, but he jumped around to explain how he knew their names and tell them his impressions of the crew. “Anyway,” he said eventually, glancing back at Erick’s arm, “the only way I can think of to have gotten these legs is with a blood binding, and, well… I did bite him.” Silas pinched his fingers, lowering his head.

Gale looked incredulous. “You think you’re supposed to be bound to _him_?” he asked, pointing at Erick. “He shot you with a harpoon!”

“I know, but…” Silas shook his head. “I don’t know. He and his crew seemed like they were trying to be nice to me.”

“Silas, they kidnapped you!” Gale retorted. “Who knows what they’re planning to do.”

“Whatever they had planned likely isn’t possible for them anymore,” Ronan said. “They can’t use Silas as a merman because he is essentially human now.” His expression darkened. “And as much as I hate to admit it, we can’t take him back to the shoal with us.”

“Well we can’t leave him with these humans!” Gale said. “If Silas has to stay on land now, we should at least take him to the northeast. He’ll be with humans who can talk to merfolk there.”

“How would we get him there?” Ronan asked. “That’s over a weeklong trip at best. Even if we took him in this boat, he doesn’t have any supplies.”

“But we can give him food and—”

“Humans need fresh water,” Ronan stated. “We can’t get him that out here.”

The fact made them all go silent for a moment. Gale groaned and dragged his hands over his face. “There has to be another way. If we leave Silas with them, he’ll have nothing. No money, nowhere to go, and nobody to care about him.”

“I know,” Ronan said, clearly struggling to maintain his composure in the face of these facts.

Erick watched the mermen talk with a mixture of disbelief and unease. They were all expressive and vocal as humans, yet their words and fins marked them as distinctly inhuman. The only thing about them that was similar to Ivan’s stories was their pointed teeth and scales. It made Erick begin to doubt how much his uncle actually knew about merfolk.

Based on how long they were talking and how upset and frustrated they looked, Erick had even more proof that the merman’s transformation was supposed to be permanent. He just wished he knew why it happened. Was it some sort of survival mechanism in response to his tail being injured? Or did taking him out of the ocean sever some kind of connection with it? Could he have prevented the transformation if he had just caught him differently?

No matter the answer, Erick knew Silas had few, if any, options now. Both he and the mermen didn’t want Silas to stay on his ship, but Erick couldn’t imagine how the merfolk could keep care of Silas. Erick would have gladly left Silas to his own devices, yet he strongly doubted the merman could survive on his own, considering he couldn’t walk or understand English. He had no money either, unless there was anything of value in the bag they took from him. He wondered where it went, as he had forgotten about it after they had gotten Silas into the tank.

After a lull in their conversation, Silas spoke up. “If I have to stay with Erick, I guess that’s just how it has to be. The gods had to have given me legs for some reason. I’m not going to find out why if we stay here arguing about it.”

“What if he stops acting nice as soon as you get to land?” Gale asked. “Are you really willing to bet everything on him not abandoning you?”

“Yes.” Silas turned his head toward Erick. The human had been watching them with a pensive expression, but seemed caught unaware to meet Silas’ eyes. Despite Silas’ misgivings, he recognized some softness in Erick’s low eyebrows and sharp jawline. Silas gave him a brief, wry smile before he faced Gale and his father again. “I don’t know what Erick’s plans are, but I’ll be okay with him for now. He wouldn’t have saved me if he didn’t care even a little.”

Gale scowled. “Okay, but I still don’t like this. I don’t want you to have to go alone.”

“Neither do I, but how would any of you join me?” Silas asked. “Have them put one of you in the tank they put me in? Then you’d just be in the same situation I was in.”

“Yeah, but if I could stay with you—”

“You wouldn’t want to be stuck in that tank, and I don’t want you to risk yourself like that anyway,” Silas said. “It’s too small, and I don’t know where they would keep you on land. If they tried to separate us, I don’t think I would be able to do anything.”

Gale’s scowl started to flicker into dismay. “If you leave us now, how are we ever going to see you again?”

“I don’t know,” Silas answered. He clenched his hands against his knee, trying to keep a brave face. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to sail back out to the shoal and try to meet you guys at the surface.”

“I don’t want to wait for maybe one day!”

Ronan’s expression matched the grief in Gale’s voice. “None of us do.” Facing his son, he said, “We can stay with you now until you get to land, but I also want to try to get your things back to you. The problem is I don’t think we will have time to get back to the house and return here before you make landfall.”

Silas bit his lip. “Do you think you can get it to me at the docks?”

“It should be possible,” Ronan answered, “but will you be able to meet us there?”

Silas considered it for a moment, glancing over at Erick and the ship again. Erick still looked uncomfortable as he let them talk. “Honestly, I don’t know. If I could just ask them to let me stay on their ship until your return, they’d probably let me, but we can barely understand each other even with charades. I’d still like to try, though.”

“All right then,” Ronan said. “What do you want us to bring?”

“Well, I know I want some things from my salvaging collection, but I shouldn’t take a lot until I know how things will go on land. My gold jewelry pieces should be the easiest to pack and keep hidden, and I’ll probably need to sell a lot of it to pay for food and things.” He went quiet, trying to think of any other necessities. There were plenty of things he wanted, like his bead working kit, but he didn’t want to run the risk of losing anything precious. It was not a given that the humans wouldn’t simply take anything his father brought him, as they had not given him back his salvaging bag yet.

Eventually, Silas said, “I think the jewelry should be the only thing.” He tried to smile at Gale. “You can divide up the rest of my things with Jeb and the rest of my salvaging crew. I’d rather you guys have it than let it sit around until I can return.”

“Silas… You idiot!” Breaking down into tears himself, Gale grabbed Silas around the waist and nearly pulled him into the water. “Why couldn’t you have just gone back underwater when I told you to?”

Silas couldn’t stop his tears either as he hugged back Gale. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

The two continued their embrace for a long minute before Gale pulled away. Wiping his face, he reached down to undo his belt. “Take my knife,” he said, holding it and his belt out to Silas. “You cut these bastards if they try to hurt you again, okay?”

Silas nodded quickly, too choked up to speak as he accepted it. Gale’s song-forged knife was one of the few mementos he had from his father. Silas clutched it against his chest. “I’ll keep good care of it.”

“Good.” Gale nodded too, looking at a loss for words despite wanting to say more.

“There’s only one more thing I should tell you now, Silas,” Ronan said. “If your blood binding with this human was fully blessed by the gods, you should expect to receive a sign with the full moon.”

Silas’ eyebrows knotted. “But that’s tonight. Is me getting legs not enough?”

“No, that only happened because Erick is human.” Ronan sighed. “I wish we had had this talk before now.” He rubbed between his eyes. “When a couple receives their sign, they will both become very… aroused. And it will be difficult, if not impossible, to resist being with your partner.” Giving Silas a grave look, he continued, “Since you do not know Erick, I am telling you now to not let yourself be alone with him tonight. You’re not ready for that, and you are certainly not ready for the responsibility of what may come afterwards.”

Silas felt like he swallowed a rock. “Responsibility of what?”

“Children,” Ronan answered. “Most couples have a child within the first year after their marriage.”

“Oh,” Silas said in a small voice. He looked down at his waist, terrified of the prospect. All merfolk, regardless of their gender, could carry children. Those called breeders could do so more easily than studs, but both of Silas’ fathers had been studs. His maternal father had died when Silas was only a child because carrying him had left him permanently weakened and ill. As Silas was one as well, he could face those same complications.

“Just be careful, all right?” Ronan said.

“I promise.” Silas reached over the boat to hug him. His armor uniform was cold against his bare skin, but he didn’t care. “I love you, Dad.”

Ronan tightly held him back. “I love you too.”

Silas was the first to pull away. “I guess it’s time for me to go now.”

“We’ll stay with you as long as we can.”

“Okay.” Unwillingly, Silas faced Erick again and gestured to bring them back up to the deck.

Even though Erick was expecting this outcome, he wasn’t prepared for the sense of guilt he felt. Before he hadn’t cared that he was taking Silas from his friends. He had just been a greedy fish with sharp teeth. Now Erick had seen them cry and say their goodbyes, and their humanity was plain as day. He didn’t know how to reconcile this fact with his uncle’s stories.

With a heavy heart, Erick called up to Talia and Dunley to reel them back up. Silas put on the belt with his friend’s knife as they rose. It looked too large for his elfin figure. The knife was as out of place on him as the former merman was on Erick’s ship.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still barely keeping to posting once a month -- Let's see if I can manage to post the next chapter of this before the end of May.
> 
> So, life update time. That antidepressant I was trying out turned out to be an absolutely shitty decision, and I've since moved onto new meds that actually work for me because I do in fact have ADHD, not depression. Go figure. I feel like I'm just now *finally* getting my life more or less organized. It just sucks that it had to happen now, when the semester is basically over, instead of a lot earlier when it could have made more of a difference.
> 
> As far as writing goes, merfolk stuff is still sadly on the backburner. I keep thinking about the stuff I want to do with this story, and so much of it now depends on massive rewrites, and I'm not sure how to go about it when I've already published so much. I don't want to just make an entire new version and just mark the original Go Off the Deep End as forever incomplete, but it feels weird to make so many big changes in a thing that's already been liked and read as-is. This also isn't even getting in to the fact that I've been thinking a lot about what merfolk would be like as a webcomic instead of an AO3 fic, and how many facets of the story would work better in a visual medium. But I'm not confident enough in my ability to draw to make that leap, and I don't really think I can find someone else to illustrate it for me. 
> 
> So, thoughts? 
> 
> As always, thank you for sticking around. It hurts a lot that I'm not posting nearly as often as I used to, but I hope you'll continue to be patient with me and my mental health as I figure out grad school and life in general.

After Erick helped Silas out of the lifeboat, he guided him back to the railing to sit him down. Most of the armored mers dove back under and disappeared, but the two Silas had hugged goodbye remained near the ship.

Erick returned to the helm and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. All of his crew stood on the deck, staring at him. Dunley asked, “What’s the plan now?”

“Drop the sails and raise anchor,” Erick answered, resting his hands on the wheel. “We’ll resume our course.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” Dunley turned to Eustace and Flynn. “Let’s get this ship moving.”

As the three of them set to work, Talia lingered. She frowned in concern at Silas, who looked like he would begin crying again at any moment. “Is there anything we can do to help him?”

Erick followed her gaze. Hanging his head, he said, “I don’t think so, unless you know where his bag went. We can’t give him back to his friends, but he might appreciate his things.”

“It’s down in my room,” Talia said. “There isn’t really much in it. Just some weird tools and things he must have found at the wreck.”

“Well, get it anyway. It’s the least we can do.” Erick decided against chastising her for taking it, as he knew her old habits too well. She never quite grew out of being a street urchin.

Talia nodded. “All right.”

Erick helped his crew adjust the sails to catch the wind while she went below deck. When she returned and brought Silas’ bag back to him, Erick noticed and smiled somewhat at his reaction. He hugged it to his chest and said something Erick assumed meant thanks. After he dug through it to be sure everything was still in it, he leaned over the railing and held it up to show his friends. Silas then slung it back over his shoulder and kept his hand on the strap. It hadn’t seemed like much to Erick, as they were only returning what they had taken, but it clearly meant a lot to the merman.

 _The Gentian_ made landfall before sunset. Silas waved his final goodbye as they pulled into port and began sobbing again while they tied the moorings. By the time they were ready to disembark, however, he had recomposed himself except for his still red-rimmed eyes.

Erick put his duffle bag straps over his shoulders like a backpack and knelt down beside Silas. “It’s time for us to go,” he said, holding out his hand.

Silas looked at his hand, but made no move to take it. He was too emotionally spent to try walking anymore. Part of him still also hoped he could just stay permanently on their ship, but the rest of Erick’s crew was walking down the gangplank with their bags. If he stayed, he would be alone.

“Silas, you need to get up.” Erick frowned at the merman’s listlessness. “I can’t leave you here.” For a moment it seemed like the merman would continue ignoring him, but then he uncurled his legs away from his chest and lifted up his hands. Erick looked confused at him before he realized the merman wanted to be carried again.

Erick face-palmed and sighed deeply. He never should have carried the merman that morning. “Fine,” he grumbled, putting his hands under Silas. “But don’t get used to this. You still have to learn how to walk eventually.”

Silas rested his head against Erick, comforted by his warmth and the smell of saltwater in his shirt, yet annoyed with himself for being soothed so easily. The first time Erick picked him up had caught Silas off-guard and left him feeling unsettled, but now he easily sunk into his steady embrace. He might have even let himself nod off entirely, exhausted as he was, if it wasn’t for the fact that there was too much to see on land. Humans dressed in countless different clothes walked among the docks and the street. The voices of the crowd were both familiar and strange with their different language. The square buildings and bizarre little houses on wheels fascinated him. Animals Silas had only seen pictures of in shipwrecks pulled some of the wheeled houses, making him wonder how the ones without animals moved.

When Erick rejoined his crew on the docks, Talia smirked. “I can’t tell which of you likes this more, you carrying him or him being carried.”

Erick scowled at her. “Shut it. He didn’t want to walk and this is faster anyway.” He looked to the street. Since he had his arms full, he asked, “Will you hail a cab for me?”

“Sure.” Talia raised her arm to wave one over. “Keep me posted on how things go with the merman. I’m assuming we’re not going to go back out to sea any time soon?”

“I guess not.” Erick hadn’t even begun to think that far. “There is a lot about merfolk I didn’t know and more that I was just plain wrong about, so I need to get my facts straightened out before we set sail again.”

“You ought to see what Silas can teach you then,” Talia said. “He might know something about the mers who do sink ships, and if they’re real at all.”

“Even if he does know anything, it’ll be a long time until he knows enough English to talk about it.”

“Well, you better get to work on it.” A cab pulled up in front of them, so Talia bid Erick goodbye and set off down the street to walk back to her apartment.

Erick wondered how he was supposed to teach Silas anything as the cab driver took them to his uncle’s estate. He rested his chin on his hand with his elbow on the door handle, looking sidelong at the merman. He had his face and fingers pressed against the window. It struck Erick then how remarkable it was that the merman could be awed by everything on land when he had just permanently left his home. Whatever was beneath the sea couldn’t have been anything like the tightly packed buildings and busy streets. Erick imagined that such a change would have only terrified himself if he traded places.

The sky was turning grapefruit pink as they left the bustling West End of Anvil Point and entered the sprawling East End, where men could afford estate houses and private land. Their cab eventually drove past a wrought iron fence onto a gravel driveway. It circled around a koi pond to park in front of an ivy-covered brick house. An old oak tree over a stone bench stood off to the side of the house, and tall, neatly trimmed cypress were lined up along the fence like guards against unwanted eyes. While the driver went to get Erick’s bag out of the trunk, Erick walked around to Silas’ door.

“We’re here,” Erick said, once again holding out his hand to see if Silas would be willing to try walking. He didn’t fancy the idea of his uncle seeing him carrying the merman.

Silas stared wide-eyed at all the plants around the large house. It was all much more vividly colored than he could have imagined. What looked like ship masts with fuzzy green sponges seemed to be growing out of the part of the ground that was covered with green algae. What fascinated him most about the yard was the little pool with water spraying into the air. He couldn’t even begin to fathom what its purpose was supposed to be.

“Silas,” Erick said, trying to get his attention despite how much his wonderment amused him. “My uncle’s yard isn’t going to go anywhere. You can look at everything later.”

“Huh?” Silas looked up at the sound of his name and then frowned when he realized Erick wanted him to get out of the strange little house on wheels. With a pout, he took Erick’s hand and stepped out, but recoiled and fell back into his seat at the feeling of gravel on his bare feet. Dust and small rocks stuck to his skin. He picked up his foot to study it more closely and rub it off.

Erick chuckled. “Right, you still need shoes.” He took his duffle bag from the cab driver and returned to Silas. “I’ll just carry you to the front steps, all right?”

Silas gratefully let Erick pick him back up, but pouted again when he set him down on the warm stone steps up to the house. It also felt dusty under his toes. He tried to sit to make Erick continue carrying him, but the human pulled him back up. He made him put his feet on each of steps one by one, holding him steady as he went up. The way the stairs exercised his legs annoyed Silas. He decided that they were his least favorite human invention so far.

Erick rang the doorbell and smiled despite himself as he watched Silas examine the paint on the front door. His utter fascination with the most unremarkable things was absurdly endearing, yet it made Erick more annoyed at how off-limits the merman was supposed to be. Even ignoring his issues with the merman’s perceived age and gender, Erick still had to deal with the fact that Silas was essentially his prisoner. There was nothing ethical about the things Erick wanted to do with him. Even if Silas was choosing to stay with him now not just out of necessity, he knew it would be wrong to pursue anything.

Ivan’s butler, Wilfred answered the door. “Welcome, Erick,” he said, nodding to him since he was too old to properly bow anymore. He had more hair in his white mustache than on the entirety of his head. “I see you’ve brought a guest.”

“His name’s Silas, and he’ll be staying the night,” Erick said. “Is Ivan free to meet us in the parlor?”

“Yes, but advance notice about your guest would have been appreciated.” Wilfred stepped aside to let them in. Noticing Silas hanging onto Erick’s arm, he asked, “Are you hurt? We have crutches if you require them.”

Silas tilted his head at Wilfred. Erick answered, “He can’t speak English, and he’s not hurt or anything. He just doesn’t know how to use his legs.” At the butler’s perplexed expression, Erick continued, “I’ll explain after we sit down with my uncle.”

“Very well. I will fetch him now.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm FREEEEEEEE! My spring semester is finally over and I can focus on good stuff again, like our merboys. I'm hoping to wrap up this story soon, and then I'm going to work on making a list of all of the changes I want to make in my original version. If I make it that far, we'll see how things go from there.

In the parlor, Erick sat with Silas on a red velvet couch with ornately carved wooden armrests. The glass top coffee table had an assortment of curios from Ivan’s various travels around the world, like a bamboo flute, an ivory figurine, and beaded moccasins. Tapestry rugs hung on the wall alongside oil paintings, a decorative suit of armor, and gas wall sconces. Though Erick hardly paid any attention to Ivan’s lavish décor, having lived with it most of his life, Silas looked thunderstruck. He kept turning his head to look at different parts of the room, completely captivated by every trinket and novelty.

Ivan joined them a few minutes later. “Erick, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” He sat down in a wingback chair beside the couch. Despite that Erick’s uncle was near sixty, he still had more pepper than salt in his hair and the fitness of a man ten years younger.

Erick gestured to Silas, who was busy staring at a horse statue on the end table beside the couch. “He’s the reason. He’s a merman, or was anyway.”

“Excuse me?” Ivan leaned back in his chair, flabbergasted.

“We caught him while we were out at sea.” Erick put his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know why his tail turned into a pair of legs, but they did, so now I’m stuck with him.”

Ivan met Erick’s eyes. If his nephew was joking, his poker face was flawless. The supposed merman started petting the couch, playing with the velvet as if he had never seen anything like it before. Ivan’s shoulders slumped. “You’re actually serious.”

“Of course I am, I wouldn’t lie to you about this,” Erick said. “I want your help to figure out why it happened and what we should do about it now.”

“But it shouldn’t be possible. There’s only one—” Ivan cut himself short and looked Silas. “Unless… Does he have a tattoo on his back?”

“No, I don’t recall one.” Erick’s eyebrows knotted. “Why would that matter?”

Ivan frowned. “I knew a merman who could walk on land because of one.”

“Wait, seriously? Why didn’t you tell me about that?”

“It’s not something I want to get into right now,” Ivan answered, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “If it’s not that, then how could you have…?” He lowered his hand and then noticed Erick’s bandaged arm. “What happened there?” he asked, pointing at it.

“This?” Erick asked, lifting up his arm. “He bit me pretty badly when we were bringing him onto the deck, but it’s healing just fine.” He shrugged. “I should’ve expected it after harpooning him, since he was struggling so much to escape.”

“Goodness, you shot him with a harpoon?” Ivan asked, appalled. “You could have killed him!”

“How else was I supposed to catch him?” Erick retorted, bewildered and insulted that his uncle questioned his methods. “The other merman he was with jumped right out of the net we used.”

“Other merman? Oh, Erick…” Ivan put his head in his hand. “I never should have let this go so far.” He let his hand fall and faced his nephew again. “After you got him onto the deck, how did you treat his wound?”

“I just stitched it up and put him in our tank,” Erick answered, growing more baffled. “He passed out immediately afterwards, and we gave him painkillers when he woke back up.”

“That isn’t helpful. Did you get his blood in his mouth?”

Erick opened his mouth to say no, but then remembered Silas hitting his face with his tail. “I guess I might have, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“It would explain what happened.” Ivan sighed. “The merfolk call it a blood binding. If a mer and a human injure each other and taste the other’s blood, one of them can transform to match the other. What this doesn’t explain, however, is why it worked at all. It is only supposed to work for lovers.”

“Lovers?” Erick exclaimed, scooting away from Silas. The merman looked startled at the sudden movement since he had been distracted by the gold fringe on a throw pillow. “But he—I’m not…”

“I know, you’ve only just met him.”

“Not only that.” Erick felt himself reddening. “We’re both guys.”

“That isn’t an issue for merfolk.” At Erick’s shocked expression, Ivan continued, “Gender is as inconsequential as hair color to them. They are all intersex.”

“Huh? But then how do they, you know…” He tapped his finger to his hand. “How does that even work?”

“Procreation?” Ivan raised an eyebrow. “Some of them are still more able to carry children than others, but their appearance doesn’t determine that difference.”

The concept left Erick dumbfounded. “Then how are they supposed to know?”

“They don’t, unless they ask,” Ivan answered. “Why are you so curious about this over everything else?”

Erick’s face got hotter. Looking away, he said, “Well, I had to dress him, so… I wasn’t actually sure he was a boy.”

“If he didn’t have scales on his chest, then your assumption is correct.”

“Oh.” Erick went quiet as he considered everything his uncle told him so far. He glanced back at Silas, who continued staring at them even as his hands continued fiddling with the pillow. After a minute, Erick turned back to his uncle and asked, “How do you know about all of this? You never mentioned any of it before.”

Ivan sighed heavily, sinking into his chair. “I don’t even know where to begin.” He faced Erick again with a tired expression that betrayed his age. “Does the merman know any English?”

“Not really. Reena taught him how to introduce himself, so we know his name is Silas, but we’ve had to play charades to communicate anything else.”

“I see. Well, before I explain anything else, at least one confession is in order.” Ivan put his fingers together. “I know mertongue. It’s been over a decade since I’ve used it, but I should remember enough to be able to talk to Silas.”

Erick’s mouth dropped. “How—why do you know their language?” He sat up, shock turning into anger. “You said they were no better than animals!”

“I know what I said, but I am telling you now to dismiss everything I have told you about merfolk.” Ivan paused, putting his fingers to his lips as if sending a silent prayer. “After your parents died, I was a very bitter and angry man. The things I taught you about them when you were a child came from that resentment, and I never had the courage to tell you the truth.”

“So you thought it would be better to keep lying to me?” Erick shouted. “After all this time, you’re just now confessing?”

“I had hoped that I wouldn’t have ever have to,” Ivan answered. “You have every right to be upset, but—”

“Upset?” Erick scoffed. “That’s one fucking hell of an understatement! I’ve spent my whole life trying to hunt them down, and you’re just now telling me that it was all for nothing? Right after I literally kidnapped one?” He held out his hand to Silas, who had pushed himself into the corner of the couch and held the throw pillow in front of his chest. “The only reason he is stuck with us is because of you!”

“I tried countless times to dissuade you from this path,” Ivan countered. “I told you over and over that hunting them would lead to nothing good, but you never listened.”

“You gave me the funds to hunt them!”

“Only to make you quit drinking so much! I never actually thought you would catch anything. Funding your pleasure sailing was cheaper than to keep paying bail and bribes to keep you out of prison.”

Erick leapt up. “That was all my work was to you? A fucking diversion?”

Ivan winced, regretting his words. He wrest his expression back into a semblance of patience. “No, Erick, I—”

“Shut up!” Erick balled his hands into fists. “Nothing you can say will make any of this better.”

“Would you at least let me try?”

“No, I can’t even stand to keep looking at you,” Erick retorted, storming out of the room. “That merman is your goddamn responsibility now.”

Ivan stood. “Erick, don’t—” His nephew crossed the doorway and turned down the hallway towards the cellar. “…leave,” he finished lamely. He put his hand over his face to rub his temples. “Dear Lord, please keep him away from the good wine.” He took a minute to recompose himself before he faced Silas. The merman was still pressed into the corner of the couch, wide-eyed with fright.

Falling back into his chair, Ivan said, “Please forgive him, and forgive me for not speaking to you sooner. My nephew has bitten off more than he can chew.”

Silas blinked, speechless for a moment. “You know mertongue? How?”

“I was once one of the human traders who work with merfolk in the northeast,” Ivan answered. “I had a very terrible, regrettable falling out with your kind, and so I led Erick to believe merfolk were nothing but monsters.” Shamefaced, he continued, “I just had to tell him that I had been lying to him all this time.”

“Oh.” The knowledge made him lower the throw pillow somewhat, but he continued tightly holding it. “So he really did want to kill me?”

“Not you specifically, but yes. He had been trying to catch a mer to prove they exist, to fulfill both his personal vendetta against them and to stop the mers who sink ships. Both of our issues with merfolk stem from the fact that his parents, my sister and her husband, were killed by merpirates.”

Subdued, Silas let the throw pillow rest on his lap. “I had no idea.”

Ivan nodded. “Yes, well, I wouldn’t have expected you to. Ignoring his original intent, we both recognize that you’re now facing a rather unusual predicament. Do you know why you became human?”

Silas hunched in his shoulders. “I think so.”

“Good. I was worried I would have to explain,” Ivan said. “Can you tell me how old you are?”

“I’m eighteen.” Turning away his head, Silas added, “You don’t have to treat me like I’m a kid. I know I’m small for my age, but I’m not stupid.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t dare suggest otherwise. The fact that you had been able to communicate your name without knowing any of our language speaks volumes.”

“Really?” Silas brightened up.

“Yes.” Ivan gave him a small smile. “I can offer you lessons to learn more, if you wish, but I cannot guarantee that I will be a very good teacher. It all depends on what you want to do now.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know.” Silas looked down at the curios in the coffee table. “All I do know is that I want to see my dad again.” He then noticed his reflection in the glass and found he almost didn’t recognize himself, as his hair had dried to a bright, fluffy gold. It was strangely still without the ocean’s currents to move it. He turned his gaze away to the carpet. “I don’t know if Erick told you, but my dad and one of my friends tried to rescue me as we were coming to land. I couldn’t go back home with him, so he’s going to try to find me at the docks tomorrow to bring me some of my stuff.”

“We can arrange that,” Ivan said. “Is there anywhere else you might want to go? I imagine you don’t want to stay with us.”

“I mean…” Silas bit his lip. “My friend was thinking I should go to the northeast so I can at least be near other mers, but since I got legs because of Erick…” He hugged the throw pillow and hid the bottom half of his face behind it. “Do you think he might be who I’m supposed to be with?”

The question caught Ivan off-guard. “You’re asking for my opinion?” When Silas remained blushingly silent, Ivan answered, “Well, I would assume no because of his colorful history with women. Despite my best efforts, Erick is not the type to settle down with anyone.” He paused, carefully studying Silas. “Are you attracted to him?”

Silas sunk further behind the pillow. “Maybe? I know I probably shouldn’t be, but I don’t think I really dislike him either.”

“I see. In that case, I would caution you against pursuing anything. Men on land cannot love each other as mermen do. Our culture and customs are very different from yours.”

“Oh.” Pressing a frown against the pillow, Silas went silent. He struggled to imagine a kind of society that would forbid people to love each other over something so ridiculous.

“I know that probably isn’t what you were hoping to hear, but I will nevertheless do whatever I can to accommodate your wishes,” Ivan said. “I have plenty of spare rooms here, so you can pick whichever one you like. If you chose to go to the northeast, I will arrange passage for you. There is no rush to decide anything.”

Still quiet, Silas said, “Thank you. I’m glad I have you to help me.”

“It is the least I can do to atone for my nephew’s foolishness.” Ivan pulled out a pocket watch and flipped it open. Standing, he tucked it back away. “It is almost dinner time, so why don’t I take you to the kitchen? You can pick out what you would like the cook to make.”

Silas reluctantly moved aside the pillow. “Okay, but I still don’t really know how to walk. I can’t stay balanced.”

“We’ll see what we can do about that then too.” Ivan walked around to the couch to offer Silas his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's so nice to see Ivan again. I enjoy his interactions with Silas so much.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another month, another chapter, but I have good news too! I've just reread all of Go Off the Deep End so I can begin editing it in earnest, and I've already added a new chapter to help smooth out things. That means you're actually getting two chapters with this update (this one and chapter 4, which was squeezed in between chapter 3 and the old chapter 4).

Silas decided to try chicken with carrots and mashed potatoes, so while the cook set to work, Ivan took Silas on a tour through the rest of the house. The plush carpet and smooth hardwood floors were much easier for Silas to navigate than the ship’s rocking deck, but he still constantly felt unbalanced as if he was still at sea. While Ivan helped Silas practice walking, he told him about each room in both English and mertongue.

The rooms in the rest of the house weren’t nearly as ostentatious as the parlor, but each one still amazed Silas. The paper and leather bindings of the hundreds of books in the library fascinated him. When he pressed his nose to the spine between their pages, he particularly liked their dusty, aged smell. In the sunroom, he found one of the exotic plants had funny, waxy leaves. It made his fingers sticky when he pinched it. To his disappointment, Ivan didn’t let him pinch any of the others. The natatorium with its salty, humid air made him homesick, so he didn’t stay long.

As they went upstairs, Silas grinned when he saw the maid lighting gas lamps along the wall. The bright, little flame steadily burned in its hurricane glass and reflected in Silas’ amber eyes. When he blinked, he was surprised that it left light spots like the sun.

Ivan showed Silas each of the bedrooms starting with his own, impressing the merman with the amount of pillows on his bed. A bay window behind two leather armchairs overlooked a sprawling garden. The sun had already fallen, so only the fading glow of the sky silhouetted a gazebo with a swing seat beside another pond. A small waterfall made glimmering ripples across its inky surface.

At the last door of the hallway, Ivan said, “This is Erick’s bedroom, but I’ll leave it to him if he wishes to show you.”

“Why can’t we go inside?” Silas asked. “He’s still downstairs, isn’t he?”

“He is, but I don’t want to go in without his permission.”

“Can we go ask him?”

Ivan frowned. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “It would be ill-advised for me to see him right now. He is undoubtedly still upset with me, and he is probably drinking much more than he should be.”

“Why is it so bad for him to be drinking?” Silas asked, fearing the answer he suspected.

With a sigh, Ivan turned his head to a painting of a fox hunting scene. Dogs and men on horseback howled as they chased a frantic orange streak. While studying it, Ivan said, “To put it lightly, my nephew has an anger management problem. Drinking exacerbates it. Even though he is normally quite capable of maintaining a stoic demeanor, he can be… unpredictable, I should say, when he is not sober.”

Silas followed Ivan’s eyes. He looked at the painting only briefly before he turned his eyes back to his toes. “Oh.”

Ivan gave Silas a look of sympathy. “Let’s move on,” he said, moving his arm to turn Silas away from Erick’s room. “Dinner should be ready soon, so I can show you the dining room now.”

“Okay.” Silas reluctantly let him lead the way. He was starting to get the hang of walking, but he still had to be very focused on his legs to make them move how they were supposed to. He could only move one of them at a time since he couldn’t figure out how to make them do two different things at once. If he focused on one part of his leg too much, however, he inevitably stumbled and needed to catch himself on Ivan’s arm. He felt bad for constantly squeezing it, as he was sure it had to hurt or at least felt uncomfortable, but Ivan didn’t say anything but words of encouragement.

As Ivan helped him sit down, Silas asked, “Will Erick join us for dinner?”

“I would not expect him.” Ivan stepped away to sit in his chair. “I can send Wilfred downstairs to ask for his company, but he is more likely to take dinner in his room tonight.”

“Can I try asking him?” Silas put his hands on the table, as if readying himself to get up again. “You can tell me what to say in English.”

Ivan looked hesitant, looking at Silas warily. “I’m not sure that is a good idea.”

“Please? I don’t want him to stay angry at you because of me.” Silas lowered his gaze and rubbed the edge of the table. More timidly, he added, “I want to be able to talk to him too, even if you need to translate for us.”

Ivan seemed like he refuse, but then smiled despite himself. “Very well. I’ll have Wilfred escort you downstairs.” He called for him and told Silas how to ask Erick to join them. As Silas took Wilfred’s arm, Ivan said, “Do not take it personally if Erick refuses. His anger lies only with me and himself, so do not blame yourself.”

Silas nodded with a determined look. “Okay.”

It was a short walk down the hall to the narrow cellar stairs. Limestone bricks lined the wall on the way down. To spare the old butler the effort of going down, Silas took the handrail and gestured for him to wait. The terracotta tiles on the stairs were cold under his feet as he took the steps one at a time. A heavy mahogany door reinforced with decorative wrought iron was left cracked open at the end of the stairs. The cellar was quiet except for the sound of a bottle being picked up and the hollow ring of rolling liquid before it landed again.

Erick didn’t hear Silas coming down the steps. He was bent over a barstool table with his heel hooked on the middle rung of his chair. In front of him stood a wall of recessed arches filled with wine racks, illuminated by a wrought iron chandelier. His hand gripped the neck of a nearly empty bottle of pinot noir. Its sweet burn complimented his brooding thoughts. His uncle had let him look like a fool for years just because he was too much of a coward to tell him the truth. Countless bar fights and nights spent in jail, all because Erick was too stupid to realize his uncle had been lying. Erick knew his uncle was vain and devious, but he never would have thought he would sacrifice his nephew’s reputation just to preserve his own pride. He didn’t understand why he had lied at all, and that was the worst part. There didn’t seem to be any reason to turn his parents’ deaths into a mockery. Had they even actually been killed by merfolk?

The door creaked open. Erick hit his fist on the table and shouted, “God dammit, Ivan!” He threw his bottle at the back corner of the room. It shattered and scattered across the floor. “Can’t you take a fucking hint and leave me alone?” He turned to the door, but saw Silas cowering partially behind the doorframe.

The merman’s wide eyes only further infuriated Erick. “What?” he demanded, standing and shoving aside his chair. “Did Ivan send you down? You all chummy now, thinking I’m an idiot?” Erick advanced towards him. Silas took a step back, but he couldn’t reach the handrail to retreat further without turning away from Erick. “What do you fucking want from me?” He leaned over the merman.

Silas’ breaths went shallow as he stared up at Erick. His knees buckled against the wall, and it was only the force of his grip on the doorframe that kept him standing. “I-I…” His mind blanked on the order words he was supposed to use. He squeezed his eyes shut and mumbled, “You dinner like?”

“What did you say?” Erick grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away from the wall. Silas nearly fell over, but Erick seized his wrist to hold him up. “If you got something to say, then you should’ve gotten Ivan, you fucking—”

“Erick!” Wilfred shouted, hobbling down the stairs as quickly as he could. “Let him go this instant!”

Erick released Silas and let him fall onto the floor. “Why are you here, Wilfred?” he retorted.

“We were coming to inform you that dinner is almost ready,” Wilfred answered, continuing down the stairs to help Silas stand. “Silas wanted to invite you.” The merman was slowly pushing himself back up, and he winced at a bruise on his elbow.

Erick didn’t look back down at Silas. “What made him think I’d want to join?”

“I don’t know, but I am disappointed in your behavior. You ought to know better than to manhandle a guest like that.” Keeping one hand on the handrail, Wilfred offered his hand to Silas. “Come here, Silas. Are you all right?”

“Why are you asking him?” Erick asked scornfully. “He can’t understand.”

“Why were you yelling at him then?” Wilfred rejoined as Silas took his hand. “I’m asking because it is the polite thing to do.” He struggled somewhat to help Silas stand, but only had to hold him steady for a moment before Silas switched over to the handrail.

Erick scowled, having no answer. The sight of how pitiful they both looked, hobbling and helpless, further frustrated him. Unable to stand it, he stormed past them. “The polite thing would’ve been to leave me the fuck alone,” he said as he headed up the stairs.

Silas watched him go, feeling shattered like the broken wine bottle.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read Go Off the Deep End, this chapter has spoilers about Ivan's backstory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels like it's been forever since I last uploaded a chapter, but I'm not surprised considering how much I've traveled done in the past month. I've been in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts to spend time with my aunt and cousins. It's been wild meeting so many of these people for the first time. Though most of it has been great, it's really hammered home how much I've missed out on all these years because of my mom and her schizophrenia.

Erick ate his dinner at the desk in his bedroom. The only light came from the oil lamp on his nightstand table. Its dim glow made the carving of a ship on his headboard barely visible and made the painting over his bed seem more overcast than usual. The flickering shadows darkened the incoming storm it depicted over a rocky beach. It suited him as he pushed around what little remained on his plate. There was nothing else for him to do. He didn’t want to go to bed or go back home. Though he could have had Ivan’s driver take him back to his apartment, the part of Erick that wasn’t completely drowned out under anger and alcohol knew he couldn’t abandon Silas just yet. He still needed to know what they were going to do with the merman, and his uncle owed him a proper explanation. No matter how little Erick wanted to see Ivan again, Erick had to get the complete truth out of him somehow.

While Erick sulked, his mind gradually stopped focusing on his uncle and drifted to Silas. He wanted to be angry at the merman for making everything so complicated, but he kept recalling his terrified expression and his fumbled attempt to ask for Erick’s company. The merman’s wrist had seemed so thin in his hand. It had taken no effort for Erick to pull him away from the door. Erick lowered his head and held his temples with one hand, sighing as he fought off his growing guilt and intrusive, perverse thoughts. Why did the merman have to look so innocent and insist on trying to invite him? Ivan should have known better than to put the merman in between them. The merman shouldn’t have even had a reason to care about Erick. He could talk to Erick’s uncle, so what was there to be gained by insisting on trying to communicate with him? Clearly, Erick thought bitterly, he was nothing but a danger to him.

The thought bothered Erick more than he wanted to admit. It didn’t help either that the merman lost his tail because of some accidental love pact. Did he think they were married or something? Erick dropped his hand to his desk, incredulous at the possibility. If the merman was also developing feelings for him, Erick had no idea what do to. His conscience told him he would need to nip it in the bud as soon as possible. Aside from Erick’s moral dilemmas, he also didn’t want to end up hurting Silas again. It was his fault Silas was separated from his friends. Bitterly, Erick thought to himself that he had already proved with his outburst earlier was that he was too much of an asshole to be trusted with such an innocent waif.

And yet, Erick kept thinking about the moment he had unwrapped the merman from his towels on his cabin bed. He had looked so vulnerable, laying exposed and unconscious. Erick ached to touch his soft, fair skin and golden hair, to kiss his lips and see if they tasted like the ocean. He kept remembering how Silas constantly called for him, how he had raised his arms to be carried. His imagination came unbidden then, of Erick taking those outstretched hands and pinning them down onto his bed, Silas beneath him as he pleaded Erick’s name.

Erick face-palmed and dragged his hand over his eyes, but the thought was enough to start getting him hot and bothered. He sighed in frustration and readjusted himself in his seat. It had never been this easy to turn himself on, especially by accident. He wondered if the blood binding had done something to him too. It would certainly be a cheap trick, making him lust after a creature he had despised less than a few days ago. Did Silas think it would help him survive on land if he got at least one human wrapped around his little finger? If that was the case, Erick knew there was no hope for him. He was already spellbound.

A knock on his bedroom door startled Erick out of his thoughts. Turning in his chair, he faced the door as he heard his uncle call, “Erick? May I have a word with you?”

Erick’s mood soured again at the sound of his uncle’s voice. “What do you want?” he answered, making no move to get up.

“I wish to apologize and discuss your earlier behavior.” Ivan paused for Erick to respond, but he remained silent. Ivan sighed. “I know it has been a trying day for you—”

Erick scoffed. “Trying?”

“Fine, exceedingly difficult,” Ivan conceded. “I don’t want to make light of my mistakes.”

“A mistake is burning dinner!” Erick retorted, turning away. “You lied to me. You did for years, even when it could have stopped me from doing a lot of stupid shit.”

Ivan sighed. After a moment, he said barely audibly through the door, “I know. I am deeply sorry. I did not believe you would change the path you were on even if I had told you the truth, and I didn’t want to lose your trust when you already had so few people on your side.”

“Yeah, well, that’s your fault for lying in the first place.” Erick clenched his hand against the desk. “Were my parents even killed by merfolk?”

“Yes, that much I can promise you is true,” Ivan answered emphatically. “I have proof. If you would come out or let me in, I can explain everything.”

Erick felt tempted to tell his uncle to fuck off, mostly because he still felt drunk and emotionally unsteady enough to punch his face, but also because he was still uncomfortably aroused. However, he took a deep breath and exhaled. “Fine. Come in.”

“Thank you.” Ivan opened the door and stepped inside. Since Erick was sitting at his desk, Ivan sat on the end of Erick’s bed. He glanced up at the stormy sea painting above Erick’s carved headboard before he cast his gaze back onto his nephew. “This is a long story, so I hope you’ll bear with me until I can finish.”

Erick turned in his chair to fold his arm over its back and look sidelong at his uncle. “We got all night, I suppose.”

Ivan nodded. “Right. Well then, I should start at the beginning, how I actually met merfolk for the first time.”

Erick’s uncle spent the next hour explaining how he had joined a ship that was trading with merfolk in the northeast, had fallen in love with a mermaid there, and performed a blood binding just like Erick and Silas in an attempt to make her human. It had failed, however, and the child they tried to have together died shortly after she was born because of fatal birth defects. She didn’t have gills or scales, but her legs were fused together. In grief, Ivan took his daughter’s death as the final sign that mers and humans were not meant to be together. He cut ties with his beloved in a vain attempt to prevent more misfortune from befalling them and later learned that she and her brother had learned how to walk on land through the help of magic tattoos. His beloved died before she found him, however, and her brother blamed Ivan for her death. In retaliation, he killed Ivan’s sister.

“This was the letter Adriel sent me after their ship went down, claiming responsibility for their deaths,” Ivan said somberly, holding it out for Erick to see. “The wax rubbing there matches the locket I gave your mother. I assume he still has it.”

Erick stared at the letter mutely, numb with the knowledge as he read it that he was looking at the handwriting of his parents’ killer. When he finally lowered it, Erick struggled to find words for another minute. “Why couldn’t you have just told me the truth?”

“I wasn’t ready to talk about what I did to Lorelei,” Ivan answered. “Explaining why your parents were killed meant explaining why I abandoned her, and I realized I couldn’t. Not after how she died trying to find me again. I couldn’t admit I was wrong.”

“Then why tell me merfolk were responsible at all?” Erick pressed. “You could have just left it a mystery.”

“I know, but you were distraught. I thought you would never be able to move past your grief without some sort of answer. I had no idea it would lead you to become obsessed with revenge.” Ivan shook his head. “And, I must admit, for a long while a part of me hoped you would be able to get it. So much of merfolk society had always bothered me, even while I was with Lorelei, because of their secrecy and disregard for human lives. So many of them felt humans were beneath them, simply because we weren’t blessed by their gods with the ability to use magic.”

Erick passed back the letter. “So they are still jerks, even if they’re not monsters.”

“To a degree, yes, but the same can be said about humans.” Ivan refolded the letter and set it aside on Erick’s bed. “It is for that reason I worry about Silas’ future. I don’t know how well he’ll take to living on land. Even if he moves to the northeast to be closer to his kind, he will never truly be a part of merfolk society again. The ocean will forever separate him from his birth home.”

“So there’s really no way to turn him back? Even if we got him that magic tattoo?”

“I doubt it,” Ivan answered. “Even if it could give a human a tail, I don’t know if it is public knowledge. It wasn’t when I tried to track down Adriel through my old contacts with fellow traders.”

“It’s worth a shot to try to find out at least, right? Talk to your trader friends again.”

“I will, but I don’t wish to bring up Silas’ hopes just yet. I haven’t told him about Adriel or Lorelei.”

Erick sat back, tightening his hold on the back of his chair. “Okay then.” He glanced back at his uncle. With his head hanging and hands folded on his lap, the dim light of the oil lamp made him look older than Erick remembered. “Is Silas just going to stay here until then?”

“Yes.” Ivan nodded. “For now, our plan is for me to teach him English and help him understand how things work on land. Tomorrow, however, we are going to return to the docks so he can get some things from his father and friend. They were the two mers who tried to take back Silas. When they realized that Silas couldn’t return home, they promised to wait for Silas for as long as it’d take.”

“Oh.” The knowledge that Erick literally watched not only friends, but a father and son be separated because of him stung his already aching heart. “Shit,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I thought they looked a little similar, but… Okay.” He dropped his hand and glanced up at his uncle. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know, honestly. You are welcome to join us, however.”

Erick hung his head. “Would any of them really want to see me again?”

“That I do not know either, but I can convey your apologizes with mine regardless.”

“No, I should be there,” Erick said with a sigh. “How do I say ‘I’m sorry’ in their language?”

Ivan smiled slightly and told him. The mellifluous words sounded strange coming from his uncle.

Erick repeated after him, and after some minor corrections from Ivan, Erick got it down. “Okay. When are we going to leave tomorrow?”

“First thing after breakfast, I assume. I would like you to apologize to Silas then as well. Lashing out at him as you did was completely unacceptable, and it took me a good while to console him afterwards.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I will.” Erick faced the ground. “Has Silas gone to bed then?”

“Yes.” Ivan stood up to leave. “It is about time for me to retire as well.” On his way to the door, he paused. Carefully, he said, “There is one more thing I ought to mention. Since you two performed a blood binding, even unintentionally, you may receive what merfolk call a sign from the gods. Silas transforming is only part of it.”

“Okay?” Erick asked, not liking where this was going.

“Simply put, you may feel an overpowering urge to be with him as long as the full moon is in the sky tonight. This urge is understood as the gods’ blessing, and so this period is when newlywed merfolk typically consummate their marriage.”

Erick looked aghast at his uncle, but it explained why he couldn’t stop thinking about Silas. He mentally cursed and held his forehead.

“I will not ask whether or not the sign affects you, as I know that is none of my business. I only want you to know of the possibility so you will be prepared for it.”

Rubbing between his eyes, Erick said, “Okay, well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll make sure to stay away from Silas.”

“Very well.” Ivan stepped out. “Goodnight, Erick.” He reclosed the door.

Erick faced his desk again. Without his uncle distracting him, his thoughts immediately returned to Silas. He wondered if Ivan had found night clothes in his size, or if Silas was going to sleep naked. The image made him groan and hit his head on the desk. “God fucking dammit…” he muttered, feeling his pants getting tight again. It was going to be a long night.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Rating for this chapter is Explicit* Silas and Erick spend the night together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter is Explicit*  
> Tomorrow I begin my second year of grad school. I feel a lot more prepared for classes now that I'm on good meds, but I'm having second thoughts about my master's project and life in general after I graduate. I don't know what I want to do or how to even begin applying to any job period. I know logically how to search for them, write resumes, and send applications, but the anxiety of doing all of that paralyzes me. 
> 
> Regarding my writing, I haven't made much progress with this story or GOtDE. I've revised a bunch of early chapters, but made no headway on the source of my writer's block. I haven't really been letting myself work on it period because I haven't been working on my master's project (which I know is dumb, but I'm not good yet at using the coping mechanisms I've learned). My hope is that things'll start to get better when I finally have a good therapist again, so fingers crossed that that happens soon.

Silas squirmed in his bed, unable to find a comfortable position under the thick covers burying him. Ivan had been kind enough after dinner to help Silas bathe, but the lack of salt on his skin, the strange perfumes in the soap, and the nightclothes he was borrowing from Ivan made him feel further away than ever from his home. The few belongings he still had from his salvaging bag did little to make his room feel more like his own. All of his tools and the trinkets he collected, he had arranged on his dresser. He placed Gale’s knife and his bioluminescent algae lamp on his nightstand. Its soft, blue glow was the only familiar presence.

As Silas rolled over and fluffed his pillow again, his thoughts drifted to Erick. The failure of his attempt to reconcile things with him only made it more impossible for Silas to find sleep. Despite his exhausted state, even knowing logically that Erick’s anger didn’t really have anything to do with him personally, he couldn’t rest knowing that he was upset. Erick was the entire reason he was on land now. Silas couldn’t accept the thought that there was no hope for them.

As the night wore on, his worry became more of a need for something, anything, that felt more familiar than his strange new bed. Silas could only think of how he felt in the warm safety of Erick’s arms, no matter that he had seen firsthand just how unsafe Erick’s grasp could be. It was not just the fact Erick had manhandled him. He could have thrown that bottle at the door just as easily as he did at the corner. Yet knowing this, the part of Silas’ mind that could not be reasoned with insisted that Erick hadn’t meant to hurt him. It was as Ivan had said – he was just mad at himself.

Silas wrestled with the facts he knew and the excuses he kept thinking up, and his desire to return to Erick’s arms twisted into erotic ideas that left him blushing red, uncomfortable, and shockingly desperate to fill a need that had only ever been sated by personal curiosity before. He didn’t even know what to do with the parts between his legs now, though that didn’t stop him from hesitantly touching himself. His cock felt mostly the same as it did when he had a tail. The new opening beneath it, however, was much more accessible now.

He tried rubbing his cock first, trying what had worked for him previously. His ministrations hardened it quickly, but didn’t bring any relief. Being out of water made it more difficult to maintain pressure without chafing. Switching tactics, Silas poked his finger inside himself. His inner walls felt surprisingly slick. Continuing to thumb his cock, he pushed in deeper and his breath hitched. Closer now, but not enough. If anything, it only made him long even more for larger hands than his own. He wanted Erick to take hold of his cock and push something else deep within him, to fill the aching emptiness left by the loss of his tail and home.

Seconds passed into minutes as Silas tried to find relief, but he still wanted more than what his hands could offer. An instinctual certainly said he needed to return to Erick’s arms, to press himself against the solid muscle of his chest, knowing and not caring but craving the risk he represented. To give himself up would be like a leap of faith, he reasoned. He had to trust the gods and their judgement. If he didn’t do so now, would he miss his chance to make things work?

Silas didn’t really register the moment he swung himself out of bed. He picked up his algae lamp and started staggering along the wall to the door. Though he still had no sense of balance, all of his practice walking with Ivan had certainly helped his coordination. He simultaneously found himself thinking this was an insanely bad idea, that he should just go back to bed and listen to his father and Ivan’s warnings, but he also realized he didn’t care. The worst that could happen would be for Erick to reject him again. He could handle that. He hoped so, anyway.

Outside Erick’s room, Silas hesitated. The hallway was dark, save for his lamp and the moonlight filtering through the sheer curtained window at the end. He glanced at the fox hunting scene and wondered briefly if he was more like the fox or the dogs chasing it. He supposed it didn’t matter as he faced the door again.

* * *

Erick had just returned from the bathroom after jerking himself off when he heard a soft knock at his door. He stopped sharply before his bed and looked at the sound, his eyes immediately narrowing. He had already blown out his oil lamp. A faint, bluish light showed beneath the door.

Another timid knock sounded, followed by Silas calling barely above a whisper, “Erick?”

Erick breathed a curse. Getting back out his matches, he relit his lamp. He set it down on the dresser on his way to the door and opened it. “Silas?” he asked, hoping he could convey his confusion, concern, and lingering guilt all in his questioning tone. “What are you doing?”

Silas looked surprised Erick actually answered and tensed, biting his lip. His grip on the doorframe tightened. The bluish light came from a glowing glass ball hanging from a strap on his wrist. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, tugging on the hem of his too large nightclothes, Silas’ gaze turned to the floor, then Erick’s room, then back to his feet. Eventually, he lifted his eyes back toward Erick. His mouth moved, as if testing the feel of words he wanted to use, before he hesitantly said, “Want… Erick.” He lifted his hand from his shirt hem to point at Erick’s chest.  
Erick dragged a hand over his face and sighed. He wasn’t really surprised, given Ivan’s warning, but he had no idea now if he should try to comfort the merman or take him back to his room. He pinched between his eyes and put his hand on his hip, mentally debating the question. He pulled in his fingers then to look down at Silas over his knuckles. The merman was still standing, staring, though he had lowered his hand to hold his shirt again. His timid expression seemed to be growing more apprehensive with every second Erick delayed responding.

“God, you and that puppy dog pout,” Erick groaned, dropping his hand. “Like you’ve never had affection in your whole damn life.” Shaking his head, he knelt down on one knee to meet Silas at eye level. “Okay, look. I don’t know why you seem incapable of making good decisions when it comes to me, but you have to know on some level how stupid it is to want me, right?” He rested his arm on his knee.  
Silas tilted his head with a frown. His fingers curled and uncurled against the doorframe, too nervous to remain still.   
Erick hung his head. “Right,” he said, pushing back his hair. “Guess you understanding any of that was too much to hope for. New plan then. Uh…” He found himself regretting not having asked Ivan to teach him other words in mertongue besides _I’m sorry._

Before Erick could think of how to pantomime what to say, Silas hesitantly said, “Erick?” He looked up at him again as Silas pointed at him. “Erick not want Silas?” He rotated his finger toward himself before slowly closing his hand into a fist to clutch his nightshirt. His grip on it slightly tugged it down one of his shoulders, even though it was buttoned all the way up to the collar.

Erick’s shoulders fell in dismay. “No, I mean, it’s complicated,” he floundered. “I think I do like you, but you don’t understand, and this dumb god’s blessing shit is probably messing with both of our heads.” He tapped his fist on his knee, frustrated. “I just… _I’m sorry_.”

Silas’ eyebrows jumped up at Erick’s use of mertongue. Brow furrowing, he spoke mertongue in return.

Erick shook his head. “That’s the only thing I know. _I’m sorry_.” He lifted his gaze back to Silas’ face. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he said, holding out his hand.

Silas’ expression flitted through several degrees of confusion as he processed Erick’s foreign words, his faintly desperate expression, and outstretched hand. He moved one foot back, as if considering turning to leave. Then he released his grip on the doorframe and fell into Erick’s arms.

“Huh?” Startled, Erick froze, holding his hands away from Silas as the merman folded his arms around his neck. “Shit. That wasn’t supposed to be an invitation.”

Silas murmured something in mertongue. He pressed himself tighter against Erick. His hardening bulge pushed into Erick’s thigh. “Please,” he whispered. “I want…” He nuzzled beneath Erick’s jaw.

“Oh, _fuck_.” Erick groaned, giving in and letting his arms wrap around Silas. It no longer mattered that he had just jerked off. Silas couldn’t have made himself clearer even if he knew English. “I hope we don’t regret this,” he said, pulling away to regard Silas’ face. The merman’s amber eyes were bright as ever in the dim light of his lamp, wide now with trepid hope. Erick swallowed back his own fear as he threaded his hand through Silas’ blond locks. Breathing in the scent of sandalwood, citrus and spice lingering in his hair, Erick leaned in to kiss him.

Silas made a started noise at the touch of his lips, but parted his lips in return. His fingers grabbed at the back of Erick’s tight shirt, clutching it like a lifeline in rough waters. He breathed quickly, a little erratically, caught somewhere between eager and terrified. His kisses were brief, shallow, but many, a sure sign to Erick of inexperience.

“Christ,” Erick whispered. He rubbed their foreheads together. “You’re a fucking virgin, aren’t you?” He ran his hand up and down Silas’ back. “Just breathe, all right? We’re gonna do this slow.” Giving a quick glance down the hall, Erick then put his hand under Silas’ butt to hoist him up against his chest and stand. He closed the door with his heel. Even still a little drunk and influenced by whatever carnal forces were against them, he still had the presence of mind to remember Ivan’s room wasn’t far enough away that a shout wouldn’t reach him.

Silas curled his legs around Erick’s waist and tightened his arms around his neck. He paused in his kisses to rub his cheek against Erick’s collarbone and looked over his shoulder to see him taking him to the bed.

Erick sat Silas down by his pillows, where he had folded away the covers previously, and then scooted him back to give himself space to crawl onto the bed too. It took a bit of finagling, however, because Silas wouldn’t remove his arms from Erick’s neck.

“You being a monkey now?” Erick asked, smiling wryly as he glanced down at the merman, who only answered by continuing to nuzzle him. “All right then.” Erick leaned over Silas to grab the pillows on the far side of his bed and stacked them atop his others against his headboard. Walking on his knees, he readjusted Silas to lay him against the pile and unhooked his arms to face him. “Okay,” he said, resting on his toes and knees over Silas’ legs. Silas tucked his hands timidly under his chin, tightly holding his strange, flameless light. “I have no idea how far you want to go with this. Just kissing and cuddles?” He looked down at his own and Silas’ bulges. “Or are we going the whole nine yards here?”

Silas blushed at the glance and squirmed against the pillows. He folded his hand over his crotch, curling up one of his legs, and his shoulders hunched together. Whispering something in mertongue, he averted his eyes before shyly looking back up at Erick.

“So, no to sex?” When Silas continued looking confused, Erick forced himself to point at his own crotch and asked, “Yes or no?” He felt his face growing hot at the boldness of the gesture.

Silas’ blush darkened and he hid his face behind his hands. Erick waited with his hands on his knees. After a moment, Silas hesitantly parted his fingers to furtively look at Erick and then at his crotch. He slowly lowered his hand and nodded once, quickly, before taking off his lamp’s wrist strap. He set it aside on Erick’s bed and reached forward, cupping his hand over Erick’s groin. He gave it a gentle squeeze before pulling it towards him.

Erick resisted the urge to shy away, surprised by his response, and rumbled a satisfied sound at the delicate fingers being so brazen. “Fuck, okay. That’s a yes.” He bent forward onto his hands to lean over Silas. “You’re a lot better at this nonverbal stuff.”

Silas hitched back his elbow to lift himself up towards Erick and give him another chaste kiss. Erick lowered himself further onto his elbows, careful to keep his weight off the merman, as he grinded Silas’ hips and returned his kisses. Silas’ hands snaked under Erick’s shirt. He started by rubbing his back, then let his hands explore the rest of his chest, lingering over his ribs with feather-light touches. His fingers traced the area where gills would have been if Erick had been a merman.

“Holy shit, your hands are soft,” Erick said, taking a break to breathe. He straightened up to reach behind himself and pulled his shirt off over his head. Tossing it to the floor, be bent forward to unbutton Silas’ nightshirt. “Yes?” he asked, glancing up at Silas’ face before he started.

Silas nodded more enthusiastically this time, already staring at Erick’s abs. He reached up to pet them while Erick undid his nightshirt. Once free, Silas used Erick’s shoulder as leverage to pull himself up so Erick could pull it off of him.

As Erick laid Silas back down, he stared at the merman’s chest and the empty space where his gills used to be. His right side had a bluish tint from his flameless light, while Erick’s oil lamp bathed his left side in a warm glow. From his neck to his hips where his waistband rested, he had flawlessly smooth, pale skin. “God, you’re perfect.” He ran his hand over Silas’ bare skin and rubbed his thumb against his nipple, making Silas gasp and clutch at the sheets beneath him, but he leaned into Erick’s hand as he pulled it away. Erick resumed rubbing Silas nipple with a rueful expression. “How did I ever think you were a monster?”

Silas made breathy, needy noises, squirming under Erick’s touch. “Please, Erick,” he said, grabbing at Erick’s other hand to try to pull it towards his other nipple.

Erick smiled wryly. “Now you’re just getting bossy.” Nevertheless, he followed Silas’ direction and gave his other nipple attention while he bent forward again to pepper his chest in kisses. Silas’ knees came up and gripped both sides of Erick’s hips. How easily he reacted to Erick’s attention only made Erick want to fuck him even more, as he knew already that he’d rather penetrate Silas’ cunt than try to prep either of their assholes. How he’d do that safely, however, was another question entirely.

In his wallet was a condom, Erick was pretty sure. He just didn’t remember how recently he had replaced it, and didn’t know if it would hold up to a whole night of fucking. As long as that full moon was in the sky, who was he to deny it now?

Before long, Silas began whining Erick’s name as he grew impatient for more. Erick grinned at his lust-blown, amber eyes. The depraved part of himself was intensely pleased that he was able to bring out something so perverse in such an innocent spirit. Silas had given himself so willingly to Erick, blindly trusting him without any rhyme or reason. Even if it was just a bad decision spurned on by magic he didn’t understand, it was a gift Erick realized he fiercely wanted to protect, no matter if he couldn’t admit it to anyone else yet.

 Erick gave Silas’ chest and stomach a last row of kisses before he pulled away and whispered, “I’ll be right back.” He jumped off the bed, held a hand towards Silas to gesture for him to wait, and then went to get his wallet from the dresser. Silas stared, puzzled. Erick found his spare condom and inspected it for but a moment before deciding it was probably fine. It was better than nothing, at least. He climbed back onto the bed and said, “I don’t know if merfolk ever use condoms, but I hope you don’t mind me not going bareback.”

As Erick pulled off his pants and rolled on the condom, Silas watched, fascinated by how the rubber stretched over his cock. He timidly held out a hand towards it, glancing up at Erick as if to ask if it was okay to touch.

Erick laughed and sat back on his haunches over Silas’ lap to let his cock stand proudly upright in front of him. “It’s all right,” he said, giving himself a few strokes up and down his length. “If I’m gonna stick this thing in you, I might as well let you play with it first.” To make his meaning clearer, he took Silas’ hand and gently guided it towards his balls first.

Silas’ eyes widened as he explored the difference between the bare skin of his balls and the rubber over his cock. Erick hummed deep in his chest, watching with half-lidded eyes as Silas’ pale fingers trailed up and down, then wrapped around to gauge its girth.

“You can be rougher if you want,” Erick said, putting his hand around Silas to tighten his grip. “I doubt you’d break me.”

Silas looked up as Erick put his hand around his and grinned as if he understood. He then removed his hand and pulled the string on the bow holding up his pants.

“Now we’re talking,” Erick said, grinning in return as he shuffled back to help Silas pull off his pants. He tossed them onto the floor with their other clothes. Turning back to Silas’ exposed crotch, he studied it now, remembering how he had avoided looking the first time he saw his mixed genitalia. Silas’ cock was surprisingly large for his slender frame, just as long and slightly thicker than Erick’s own. Where balls would have been was instead the soft mound of his cunt, already leaking moisture.

Silas became shy again as Erick stared, once again pulling together his legs and hunching in his shoulders. His expression looked more sheepish than afraid, but it was hard for Erick to be sure.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Erick tried to smile reassuringly as he rubbed Silas’ hip and outer thigh. “It shouldn’t hurt – I know better than to think you’re supposed to bleed or anything your first time.” He moved his hand towards Silas’ cock. “Yes?”

Silas swallowed hard, but nodded. He guided Erick’s hand just as he had done to let him explore too, starting at the head of his cock. Erick went slowly, playing a bit with the foreskin before sliding down to brush the light brown hair around the base. As he dipped his middle finger in between Silas’ folds, the merman made a small noise.

“Everything okay?” Erick’s hand went still, not pulling away but not going further either.

Silas nodded hastily, though still looked nervous. When Erick still didn’t move, Silas took his hand and pushed his finger deeper. He exhaled a whimpering sigh as his inner walls clenched around the invasion, but his hips bucked up into it. “Y-yes… Want Erick.”

“Fuck,” Erick breathed, taken aback by how hot Silas looked and sounded. “Okay, come here.” He pulled out his finger and rubbed Silas’ natural lubricant around his sheathed cock, then slipped his hands under Silas’ butt to pull him down the pillows. Grabbing one of the pillows behind him, he lifted Silas up to put it under his back. Silas adjusted it and scooted up to lift his butt higher. Once positioned, Erick rubbed his dick against the underside of Silas’ dick and entrance. He laughed at the absurdity of it. “You’re a two for one deal.”

Silas put his hands on Erick’s hips and bucked up against his cock. He whined Erick’s name, trying to pull him closer.

“Okay, okay.” Leaning forward to kiss his lips, Erick reached down and put his finger inside Silas again to further loosen him up and rub more of his moisture over his cock. When he got Silas panting between kisses and stretched enough to easily accommodate two fingers, Erick pulled back to spread Silas’ legs apart and aligned his cock with Silas’ entrance. “Look at me, Silas,” he whispered, bending forward. Silas looked up at the sound of his name and smiled blushingly at him. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Putting his hands on Silas’ hips, Erick slid down and down into Silas, pressing himself up to the hilt. He groaned, relishing the tight fit, and Silas made his whimpering sound of pleasure. His legs squirmed, wrapping around Erick’s as his heels dug into the bed, as if he couldn’t decide to try to escape or go deeper. His hands wound around Erick’s waist and clutched each other to hang on.

“Fuck, _yes_ ,” Erick rumbled, slowly pulling out to push back in. “Just hold me just like that, that’s it.” He moved one hand to brace himself on the bed and tightened his grip on Silas’ hip. His thumb pressed squarely against Silas’ pelvis as his fingers squeezed the side of his pert ass. He gradually picked up his pace, rolling his hips to work in an up and down motion with the push and pull.

Silas’ whimpers grew into breathy, desperate words in mertongue. The language sounded like music through his lips, a song with a pattern too alien to follow. He hooked his heels behind Erick’s legs and tried to move his hips with Erick’s. The rhythm of his effort couldn’t seem to sync up, especially as Erick began driving himself harder and faster into Silas’ inexperienced entrance.

Crying out, Silas came first, digging his nails into Erick’s spine. His cock spurted against Erick’s chest and dripped onto his own stomach. Erick continued pounding in and out, hardly noticing over his own guttural growls. Silas’ nails on his skin and the heat of his cum only pushed him further.

Erick grit his teeth and tried to delay his climax as long as possible while Silas rode out his, but it wasn’t long before he went ridged and choked back a shout. Erick’s fingers clenched his sheets while he felt his cock unload into the condom and drown his head under the pressure. He jerked in and out a few more times, gasping, as the pressure soon dissipated to a satisfying, steady heat.

Collapsing onto his side, he moved Silas with him and rolled him onto his chest so he could lay down. His cock he left inside Silas’ still occasionally spasming cunt. He grabbed one of the pillows and tucked it behind his head, then grabbed the blankets to pull them back over them both. Silas rested his head under Erick’s chin. He wiggled a bit to reposition himself, but remained mounted with a contented, mewing sound.

Lazily petting Silas’ head and back, Erick told himself he’d clean them both up and perhaps try for round two as soon as he had a little cat nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you all were eagerly waiting for this chapter, so I hope you enjoyed. ;)


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I survived my first month of my second year of grad school, so yay me! I also got to visit Colorado last week because I was part of a panel for a lit conference there, and I had so much fun exploring Boulder and hiking around Estes Park. It was such a relief after how much I stressed out and panicked over preparing and presenting my work. 
> 
> As for my writing on AO3, I've reworked the opening of GOtDE. The first 6 chapters are all new or revised, so if you want to begin rereading, start there. I'm trying my best to preserve my old notes and comments, but they'll probably be confusing now that everything's getting moved around. (For example, comments that were on chapter 1 are now on chapter 5... -___-)
> 
> Finally, I want to remind everybody that I have a Twitter (@AceyDark). I've been a lot more active there recently, so if you want to follow my life updates and check out fun facts about my writing, check it out.

Silas had fallen asleep on top of Erick’s chest, breathing deeply in the salty smell of his sweat and faint, unique musk. He didn’t remember much of anything after Erick came. There was the warmth of the blankets, his muscled arms, and the soft rise and fall of his breath. At some point during the night, he rolled off of Erick and ended up curled behind his back. Underneath the blankets, his forehead pressed between Erick’s shoulder blades.

Meanwhile Erick was snoring softly, one arm folded beneath his pillow. He was facing the door side of his room. When a loud knocking interrupted the silence of their sleep, Erick jerked awake and looked groggily at the door.

“Erick?” Ivan called. “Are you awake?”

With a groan, Erick answered, “Yeah, what’s up?” He sat up on his elbow and pushed his hand through his hair to straighten it out.

Ivan opened the door. “Silas wasn’t in his room, so… Oh! My apologies.”

As Ivan looked into the room, Silas had poked up his head behind Erick to look blearily at the intrusion of his sleep. His fluffy hair had poofed into a ridiculous blond tangle.

“Huh?” Erick glanced over his shoulder and looked horrorstruck with embarrassment. “Shit!” He yanked the blanket back over Silas’ head, as if hiding him could undo the damage.

Ivan had reddened almost as much as Erick. “Well, uh, I’ll… I will be downstairs,” Ivan said, ducking back into the hall and quickly reclosing the door.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck!_ ” Erick repeated, burying his face in his hands. “What am I supposed to do now?” He had no idea what his uncle was thinking. He had thought his uncle disapproved of homosexuality, but he hadn’t seemed to care when it came to merfolk. At best, Erick supposed they could both pretend nothing happened if he played the night off as not having had any control over himself, but if he gave his uncle any reason to think he took advantage of Silas… The thought made Erick press his nails into his scalp. He could hardly recall anything they did together, much less whether or not Silas had fully consented to everything.

Silas pulled back down the blanket to hesitantly peek up at Erick. He didn’t really understand why Erick was freaking out so much, but he nevertheless regretted embarrassing him. He poked Erick’s leg and murmured in mertongue, “I’m sorry.”

“Huh?” Erick looked back down at him. “No, don’t apologize,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m the dumbass who didn’t think through what would happen in the morning.”

Frowning in confusion, Silas turned his gaze back to the blankets and became aware of the residue on his stomach and between his legs. He lifted the blanket to look down at himself and grimaced. The smell of his spunk had completely replaced the nicer smell of the soaps Ivan gave him.

Erick noticed Silas’ disgusted expression and sighed in sympathy. “Yeah, we both need to wash up.” Though it wouldn’t fix the problem of what to tell Ivan, cleaning themselves would at least help. He folded back the blanket and noticed then that he didn’t remember what happened to the condom he had used. “Shit.” Climbing out of bed, he checked the floor by their clothes and then the blankets before he found it rumpled up towards the foot of his bed. “God, please no…” he muttered, examining it. As he feared, a small tear had appeared at the end.

“God dammit!” Erick threw the condom in the trash bin by his desk. Holding his temples, he couldn’t bring himself to look at Silas. Even if he could convince himself that the tear might have happened after he pulled out, there was no point to hold onto such hope. Now he had to worry about whether or not he knocked up Silas on top of how his uncle would react.

Silas watched Erick’s outburst in trepidation, worrying what was wrong with the rubber sleeve he had worn. It hadn’t felt bad. He had already figured it had something to do with preventing Erick’s seed from entering him, but Silas accepted the chance of becoming pregnant when he decided to go to Erick’s room. He was afraid of it, certainly, but it was part of throwing his trust in with the gods.

As Erick remained quiet, muttering curses, Silas said, “Erick?” The human tensed before glancing at Silas over his shoulder. “It’s okay.” Silas mimicked the soothing tone Erick had often used with those words.

Silas’ reassurance seemed to have the opposite effect he wanted, as Erick’s shoulders fell. Dragging his hand down his face, he said, “Not okay, Silas. I fucked up.” He turned back towards Silas. “ _I’m sorry._ ” He shrugged helplessly, wishing again that he knew more words, before he padded back over to Silas. He held out his hands to him and nodded towards his bathroom door. “Come on, now. Let’s see if I can make any of this better.”

Silas looked torn between Erick’s hands and continuing trying to communicate with him, but reluctantly pushed away the blankets. He lifted up his arms to hook them around Erick’s neck.

Erick easily scooped up Silas and held him against his chest. Silas felt their heartbeats pick up from the contact of their naked bodies, and he wondered for a moment if Erick would make him feel good again while they bathed. Even if he didn’t, Silas knew it would still be world’s different than when Ivan helped him get clean.

Setting Silas down on the counter by the sink, Erick went to pull the curtains around the claw foot tub and turn on the shower. Silas watched, fascinated as always, by the feats of human engineering. When Ivan ran the bath for Silas last night, Ivan had told him how the water came from pipes that were attached to many other pipes outside the estate, just as the flammable gas in the wall lamps and chandeliers also came from different pipes. Unlike the plumbing system merfolk used to vacuum waste from their homes which used magical glyphs to control currents, humans somehow managed to control the pressure with strange concepts called gravity and physics. Ivan wasn’t able to fully explain the math or mechanics of how it all worked, but Silas didn’t mind. He enjoyed the mystery.

Once the water had heated up, Erick picked up Silas again and sat him down at the end of the tub by the faucet, wisely knowing it would be impossible for Silas to stand without slipping even if the floor had a better nonskid surface. He lathered a washrag with his bar of cedar soap and quickly scrubbed himself before rinsing and lathering it again for Silas. Holding it out for him to take, Erick said, “Scrub up just like I did, okay?”

Silas nodded and took the washrag, finding it interesting how little time Erick took. Ivan had let him go slowly, allowing him to enjoy the bubbles that reached all the way up to his chest. The soap Erick used also smelled different, almost heavier or darker somehow, but Silas had no other vocabulary to describe the difference.

While Silas took his time washing his body, Erick briskly shampooed and rinsed his hair. He didn’t own conditioner. Since he didn’t see much point in washing Silas’ hair again when it was clear that it had already been thoroughly washed last night, he stepped out and began toweling off.

Before long, Silas finished and Erick helped him dry off as well. He carried him back to the bedroom and set him down on the bed in his towel. As Erick got dressed, Silas wondered what he was supposed to wear. Ivan told him they would get him clothes in his size, but he didn’t know when that would be.

As Erick buckled his pants, he glanced back over at Silas and frowned, also realizing that he wasn’t sure what Silas should wear. He didn’t know what Ivan did with the clothes Flynn had loaned him. His nightclothes were still on the floor, but they hardly seemed suitable if the plan today was still to go back to the docks. With a start, Erick then remembered Ivan had kept most of the clothes Erick had when he was a kid. Hoping he could finding something that would fit Silas, Erick went to his closet and took out a stack of boxes.

The first two he opened just had toys and other memorabilia he couldn’t bear to part with or store at his own apartment, but the last was tightly packed with shirts, sweaters, and pants. Most of what survived were the school uniforms he hated, which Ivan had insisted on keeping for whatever reason. He had worn to death almost all of his favorite clothes. After some digging, he pulled out a heather grey shirt and navy blue shorts. There weren’t any shoes or socks, but he figured Silas wouldn’t want to wear them yet anyway.

“Here,” he said, passing the clothes over to Silas.

Silas looked surprised at the gift. He held up the shirt first and gave it a curious sniff, then wrinkled his nose at the smell of mothballs.

“Yeah, I know they’re probably pretty musky.” Erick took back the shirt to shake it out before he gave it back to Silas and did the same with his shorts. “Not much else I can do.”

Though Silas looked back somewhat longingly at his nightclothes, he pulled on the shirt. He struggled a bit to pull his shorts up the rest of the way after he got them over his knees, so Erick helped him stand to button them.

“There we go. You practically look like a real boy now,” Erick said wryly, finding himself praying that Silas was actually an adult. Ivan hadn’t confirmed it either way yet for him. The last thing he did before he helped Silas walk out of the room with him was comb out his unruly, long hair. Erick pulled too hard on one knot, making Silas yelp. He gave the human a petulant look before taking the comb to work it out himself. Once it was all detangled, it hung flat by the water still weighing it down. His blond locks reached just past his shoulders. It really looked rather feminine. If Erick put him in a dress, he imagined Silas could pass quite easily as just a particularly flat-chested girl. While they walked downstairs, he wondered if Silas would consent to pretending he was, if only to make Erick less self-conscious about his attraction.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated! If you enjoyed these characters, please consider also reading the original version of this story, "Go Off the Deep End" or the other companion works in this series.


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